Just Enough Rope
by Dayna Barter
Summary: A sequel to "What's At Stake."  What happens when you've just taken down the biggest, baddest vampire around?  The rest set their sights on YOU.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a sequel to "What's At Stake," somewhat sooner than I had anticipated writing one. What can I say? I missed these guys! It picks up pretty much where the last one left off. This time around, Elijah has kindly agreed to share the POV of this story with Jenna. She was a little bashful at first, but I promised her we wouldn't reveal **_**all**_** of her innermost thoughts to Elijah, so let's keep those between us, 'kay? ;-)**

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><p><em>If I'm gonna hang myself on someone else, he's just enough rope,<em>

_And I know he's bad news but I can't say no._

_If bitter is sweet then he's just what I need,_

_So kiss me 'til it bleeds._

-Nina Gordon, "Kiss Me 'Til It Bleeds"

**CHAPTER ONE**

"What? That's _this _Thursday? I had it down as next Thursday," Jenna told Carol Lockwood, pinching her cell between her ear and shoulder as she trotted down the stairs of Barrowman Hall and burst out the glass door.

Carol sighed; Jenna could feel the waves of disapproval wafting off of her, even over the phone. "No. I specifically told you that the committee meeting is this Thursday. You _can_ do it, can't you?"

Jenna jumped off of the sidewalk and onto the grass as an undergrad on a skateboard, ear buds blaring, whizzed past her, missing her by only a couple of inches. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I can do it." _In my copious amounts of spare time._

"Good. We'll expect you promptly at 2:00. Don't be late." Carol hung up.

Speaking of late… Jenna glanced at the time on her phone: 11:45. Fifteen minutes past the time she was scheduled to meet with her new faculty advisor. Yeah, she was going to make a _great_ first impression. And she'd already been warned by some of her peers that the guy was moody as hell. As if she hadn't had enough set-backs already, now Dr. Jenkins, who had been so understanding through Miranda's death and all of the craziness that had followed, had opted for an early retirement package and jetted off to Arizona before the start of the semester. Now she had a thesis proposal due to go before the committee in another three weeks – her last opportunity after her two previous postponements – and here she wasn't even on time to meet with the professor who would largely seal her fate.

Jenna shifted it into another gear, nearly jogging to the large brick building that housed the University's Psychology department. She took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor, where Professor Richard Mitchell's office was located. There was a swath of light in front of the doorway when she popped out of the stairwell, indicating that he at least hadn't taken another student in to fill the timeslot. Slipping past a knot of students who were comparing notes in the middle of the hall, she skirted along the wall for the last few yards to the professor's office and knocked on the door casing.

The man seated at the desk, talking on the telephone, was in his mid-forties if she were to guess, fit, with a thick head of brown hair and a close-trimmed beard. He gestured toward the empty seat. Jenna closed the office door behind her and put her cell phone on vibrate before sitting. Glancing around the office, she noted all the tack holes in the now bare walls, artifacts of the many colorful posters of hot air balloons that used to hang there; Dr. Jenkins had professed his intention to take up ballooning once he moved out to the desert.

"You're late, Miss Sommers," Mitchell said, hanging up the phone.

_No shit._ "I know, I'm sorry. Parking was non-existent, and I had to stop by the bursar's office – "

"I see here you've already been granted two extensions on your graduate work," he cut in, ignoring her excuses and looking through a folder with her name on it. "Are you now prepared to go through with your thesis proposal?" He flipped the folder closed and sat back, crossing his legs as he regarded her.

"Um, yeah. I mean, I have some ideas to go over with you – "

"Miss Sommers, the committee meets in three weeks. Which means it is due in to me in two. I would hope that you're a little beyond the 'idea' stage and well into your abstract."

"Right. Sure. No, I get it. I've got my notes right here…" Jenna perched her courier bag on the edge of his desk and flipped the top flap open, thumbing through the folders and papers she had jammed into it willy-nilly in her effort to get out the door that morning. She really needed to clean it out one of these days. Seeing the sheaf of papers she wanted, she wriggled her fingers into the tight space, trying to get a hold of it while the professor tapped his fingers impatiently. After giving herself a wicked paper cut, she pushed her hand in far enough to grip the stack and gave it a good, hard tug.

The packet, initially stuck, came loose with a jerk. As it cleared the bag, some of the other items haunting the bottom flew out with it. A couple of ballpoint pens fell out from between the papers and bounced onto the floor. A half roll of Lifesavers rolled under the desk, and a panty shield flew out, landing on the desk right in front of the professor. "Heh. '_Always_. They have wings!'" she joked, blushing furiously as she snatched it off his desk and stuffed it back into her bag. She mentally pictured a huge hole opening up in the floor and swallowing her, putting her out of her misery.

She stooped to pick up the pens, giving the Lifesavers up as a lost cause, and almost upset the whole thing on the floor, but somehow managed to catch it as it tipped. Setting it down beside the chair and sitting back down, she pushed her hair behind her ears and handed her notes to Mitchell.

He flipped through the first couple of pages. "Dr. Jenkins's notes indicated that you were planning to study the relationship between parental expectations of perfection and the birth order amongst siblings. What you've jotted down here has nothing to do with that topic."

"Well, no. I… I thought I might… change it up a little."

"A little? 'Denial of Facts-in-Evidence When Faced With The Supernatural?' I'm not sure I follow your hypothesis here." He dug down a few more pages, stopped. He ran a hand down over his face. "Miss Sommers. You _are_ aware that this is supposed to be a research-based, academic work, not an exercise in creative writing, yes?"

Jenna pushed at her hair again and shifted in her chair. "Yeah, I realize that. But if you look through the list of reference articles – "

" – All of which appear to come from various websites, of dubious origin."

"Those were what I came up with on the fly, but I'm sure if I have a little bit more time I can – "

"Miss Sommers. You've been granted two extensions already. You are, to put it simply, out of time." He paged through the rest of her notes, past the makeshift bibliography, and into some of the anecdotal examples she had listed. One in particular seemed to catch his interest. He read through the rest a little more slowly and, when he finished, regarded her thoughtfully, stroking his beard. "So you're positing that, if supernatural elements did truly exist, society as a whole would deny all evidence of that existence because it is inconsistent with society's normative view of the natural world and its established belief paradigm?"

_I should totally write that down; it sounds _way_ smarter when he says it like that. _"In a nutshell, yes." She grinned. "No pun intended." He eyed her blankly. "You know, 'nut' shell? As in 'nuts', which is how the idea sounds… um, nevermind." _For fuck sake Jenna, stop talking!_

"Part of your thesis work must be based on experimentation; it can't rely solely on individual case studies." He shook his head finally. "It's an untenable thesis. You can't experiment and document a person's denial of 'facts in evidence' when they are _not_ in evidence. You should stick with your original idea, if you do indeed intend to complete your graduate work. Is that your intention, Miss Sommers?"

"Yeah. Of course. That's why I'm here."

"Your academic history might argue otherwise, as would your lack of preparation here today."

_Well excuse the hell out of me! I was a little busy with doppelgangers and curses and getting kidnapped by Original Vampires. How are those for 'facts in evidence'?_ "Okay, look. I've had kind of a dire family situation to deal with – "

"I'm aware of your sister's death and your subsequent guardianship of her children. However, that was over a year ago now, yes?"

"Um, do you have kids, Professor? _Teenage_ kids? Because they pretty much constitute an on-going dire family situation." _Especially when they are dating vampires._

"I'm going to be blunt, Miss Sommers. I don't believe that you are either temperamentally or academically suited to a career within the strict confines of the profession of psychology." He pulled the sheaf of papers back toward him. "However... some of these ideas and anecdotes that you've put forth here are... intriguing. I sense an interest and a passion in this subject matter that is conspicuously absent from your previous work." He set both feet on the floor and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Have you considered a shift to the study of folklore?"

"Folklore?" _He wants me to study fucking fairy tales?_

"Granted, it's an area of anthropological study rather than a psychological one, but I suspect it would be a better fit. Take for example this werewolf curse you've referenced. Surely you're aware that stories of werewolves span cultures and continents. You could do some good work with a comparative analysis of such mythologies."

She could feel the flush starting, creeping up her neck, over her face, up into her hairline, until her whole head felt hot and prickly and about to shoot off if she were to fully give in to her rapidly rising temper. "Really. You've known me for all of ten minutes, and you've decided that I should just change my entire area and program of study, just when I'm preparing to write my thesis?"

"Miss Sommers – "

"You know, it may not be evident to you from your _notes_, Professor Mitchell, but I have been working my ass off toward this graduate degree for _way_ longer than I care to think about. And based on one conversation, you want me to just ditch all of that to go study _campfire stories_?"

"And what would you call these?" He tapped her stack of notes.

"A mistake. Obviously." She grabbed the packet and stuffed it back into her bag, or tried to. She succeeded only in mangling the corners of the pages as they resisted going back into its too-jammed confines. Jenna stood and tossed the papers onto the chair while she closed the bag back up and tossed it over her shoulder, then shoved them under her arm.

"Miss Sommers – "

"I'll have my thesis proposal – on my original topic – on your desk for review in two weeks." With that, she spun and tore out the door. Only a few students remained in the hallway; those stepped back out of her way as she marched down the hall, fuming. She kept that pace, propelled by fury and indignation, until she was well out of the building and halfway to her car, parked way the hell out in northeast bumfuck. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she dialed Andie's number. "Hi," she huffed out, when the other woman answered. "Are you free for a late lunch?"

* * *

><p>"It flew out onto his desk?" Andie laughed, spearing a cucumber with her fork.<p>

Jenna ran a french fry through the ketchup and nodded. It was only lukewarm; she had spent the first half hour at the Grill ranting about the events of her morning. "Yup. Right in front of him. _Plop_."

Andie chewed and swallowed, dabbing dressing off of her lips with her napkin. "Wow. That's quite a morning. You totally need to order dessert."

"Dessert? Hell, I think I need a drink." She glanced around. "Do you suppose it's too early?"

"It's five o'clock somewhere."

Jenna shoved her plate aside and crossed her arms on the table in front of her, dropping her head onto them with a groan. "What the hell was I even thinking, trying to change up my thesis topic now? And to _that_?"

"Yeah," Andie drawled. "That... is kinda something you can't just put out there, Jenna. Seriously."

"I know," she answered into her arms. When Andie didn't say anything else, she picked her head up to see the witch regarding her, one eyebrow raised. "I know!"

The waitress came over to pick up their plates. "Can I get you ladies anything else?" she asked, clearing the silver and the soiled napkins from in front of them.

"I'll try the strawberry shortcake," Andie told her.

"And I'll have a hot fudge brownie sundae. With extra 'wow, has my day been crap!'"

"Extra hot fudge sauce. Got it," the waitress winked at her and retreated.

"Where is Conner?" Jenna asked. It still seemed weird to think of Andie with a kid. He was adorable, though, and precocious as hell.

"Daycare, at the station. I have some editing to do this afternoon, so I have to go back anyway. He's having a grand time regaling his peers with tales of the magic castle and all the vampires he knows."

"Didn't you just say..."

"He's six, Jenna. He has 'an active imagination.' By the time he's old enough that anyone would think twice about it, he'll be old enough to know not to say anything."

"How is he adapting to being here?"

"He's doing great. It's amazing how resilient kids are. Not that he ever really saw any of the bad stuff, not where he would have been, but still. You worry."

"His father?"

"Not in the picture." Andy finished off her Coke and took a sip of her water. "So, have you heard from Ric?" Andie asked, changing the subject.

"Nope. Haven't, don't want to. And don't look at me like that! All that time, all those lies he told me... Uh-uh. That ship has sailed. And sunk."

"I know, and I get it sweetie, but... you forgave me. And Elena and Jeremy."

"Yeah, well, you guys weren't telling me your vampire wife was dead while you were screwing me. And eating my ice cream."

Andie nodded sagely. "Oh, well, if he was eating your ice cream..."

"All right, okay, so maybe it doesn't make sense." Jenna crossed her arms, shrugging. "I'm the woman scorned. I don't have to make sense."

Andie swallowed some more water. "And this has nothing to do with a certain handsome, classy, erudite... you know," she finished, as a group of ladies passed behind Jenna on their way to their table.

"Elijah? No. It has nothing to do with him." Andie just sat back and gave her a _'bitch, please!'_ look. "It doesn't! Oh, shut up."

The waitress brought their desserts over. Jenna's sundae consisted of three large scoops of ice cream, a huge brownie, whipped cream, and enough hot fudge to float a small boat. "I think I just had an orgasm," Andie said, looking it over.

"Chocolate therapy," the waitress agreed, leaving their checks with them.

"Speaking of orgasms," Andie said, lowering her voice as the waitress disappeared, "how about the vamp sex? Pretty amazing, huh?"

Jenna blushed. "I wouldn't know," she said, taking her first bite of hot brownie and fudge. She groaned a little. "I may need a little private time after this sundae, though."

"Really?" Andie said, pausing with a bite of her shortcake halfway to her mouth, eyebrows raised. "You two haven't...?"

"No."

Andie ate the bite and licked a dab of whipped cream off of her finger. "Why not? It's amazing."

"Yeah, I could tell that, what with all the scarves you were wearing and the acting all brain-melty and stuff."

"That's different. I had to let Damon think I was compelled." She stabbed a big piece of strawberry and ate it. "And let me tell you, biting aside? Best. Sex. _Ever_. Oh my god, I can't even... Just, _wow_."

"Isn't that sorta... necrophilia?"

"If it is, it lends a whole new meaning to 'being a stiff.'" Andie set her fork down and moved the plate aside so she could lean across the table, lowering her voice so as not to be overheard. "You know that super vamp speed thing they can do? It's not just for running, if you know what I mean. They can do it with just certain parts of the body. Fingers, tongues..."

"I get the point," Jenna told her, turning beet red. "And I'll take your word for it," she decided, taking a big spoonful of fudge sauce. Great. As if she needed _another_ reason to have to try not to think about sex every time she was anywhere near Elijah.

Andie pulled her dessert back toward her. "Does that bother you? I mean, do you actually think of him as being dead?"

"Yes. No. I don't know!" She spooned up more fudge and brownie. "It's not like I've even seen that much of him, anyway. He's hardly been around. He's been busy with... stuff. Business stuff." Jenna dug through the whipped cream until she found the cherry and popped it into her mouth. "Besides, I don't even know if he's going to hang around here for much longer. I would think he'd go back to... wherever he came from."

"But you like him, right?"

"Yeah," Jenna sighed, swirling a gob of rapidly melting ice cream through the fudge. "Maybe I should just take a 'guy-atus.' Focus on school and stop thinking about men for a while."

Andie chuckled. "Yeah. Let me know how that works out for ya."

Jenna looked up in time to see Elena and Caroline head into the restaurant. She waved and caught the girls' attention.

"I'm serious. I'm kind of like the queen of bad relationships. I get all gaga over a guy, I let that take over my life, I get dumped, I plunge headlong into depression..." She shrugged. "Maybe I need some time for myself. At least take time to get over the last guy. I really thought that Ric and I had a shot at something. Elijah can't just take Ric's place."

"Hey guys," Andie greeted the girls as they approached the table.

"Hi! Oh wow, that looks amazing," Caroline said, eyeballing the sundae.

"Grab those place settings off that table there and help me eat this thing," Jenna told them. "I'm going to make myself sick on it." She moved her bag off of the chair beside her and set it at her feet. "Where's Jeremy?"

"He went to the hospital to sit with Bonnie for a while. We're going to go over a little later."

Jenna nodded. She wished there were something she could do for Jeremy. There wasn't, and she knew it, but she hated to see him hurting. He'd had so much loss in his young life. As had Elena, who had been beating herself up over Bonnie's condition ever since the ritual had left her comatose.

So," Elena said, taking one spoon for herself and handing the other to Caroline. "We have a new history teacher. Guess who?"

"Who?"

Elena dug into the brownie. "_Elijah_."

"And he is going to be a total hard-ass, too!" Caroline lamented around the ice cream she'd just stuffed into her mouth. "We have a paper due at the end of the week. _The end of the week_!"

Andie smiled across the table at Jenna. "You were saying?"

She spooned up another bite of brownie. Suddenly, she didn't think that chocolate therapy was going to be quite enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**What is it with Elijah and public restrooms?**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 2<strong>

Elijah gave a perfunctory knock on the Gilbert door and let himself in, as had become his custom over the past couple of weeks, when he could make some time to come over at all. A quick listen told him that Elena and Jeremy were both upstairs, Jenna in the kitchen. She poked her head around the corner as he walked down the hall. "Hey. I was just about to start dinner. Coffee?"

"Always." He caught her with a hand under her chin before she turned to get it, and brought his lips down to hers for a soft kiss. "Hello," he murmured against them.

He felt her smile. "Hi."

Indulging himself for a moment, he slid his hands down her sides and pulled her against him, kissing her more firmly. All other matters aside, he was going to have to fully indulge this particular distraction soon, before it drove him mad. The sound of a door opening and closing upstairs made her pull away. "The kids are home," she said, skirting around the counter to dig a mug out of the cupboard and pour some coffee. "For some reason, they both said they had a lot of homework to do for history class."

Elijah winced. "Yeah... I didn't get a chance to speak with you about that. It came together very quickly; Carol called yesterday afternoon, on behalf of the school board, to offer me the position. I had dinner with them last evening, and we concurred that I should start immediately." He took the coffee she handed to him. "I hope it isn't too... awkward."

"It's a little weird. What made you want to do it, anyway?" she asked, pouring herself some more coffee as well. She seemed jittery; he wondered how much she'd had already today.

"It affords me an opportunity to keep an eye on things, without arousing suspicions as to why I would be seen rather frequently in the company of teenagers. And, I've always enjoyed instructing. Besides," he said with a quick grin, "I think I'm uniquely suited to teach the subject matter."

"I suppose there's that." She pulled the cream out of the refrigerator, added a liberal dose to her cup. "So, I guess you'll be staying in town for a little while," she said, trying to sound nonchalant, and failing miserably.

He zipped around the counter so that he was _right there_ when she turned around from putting the cream back in the fridge. She let out a little squeak as her caught her in his arms again. "Does that please you?" he asked, nuzzling her ear.

Jenna giggled. "That tickles! And yes, I guess I could stand having you around for a bit."

"Good." He moved his mouth down to nibble at her neck, making her giggle more.

"You're in a good mood," she observed, squirming under the onslaught.

He was, actually. "Klaus is no longer a threat; I have a new endeavor to sink my teeth into," he said, eliciting a pained groan from her, "and I have a beautiful woman, blushing and giggling in my arms. Why would I not be in a good mood?"

A door opened upstairs again, and heavy footsteps came pounding down the steps. Jenna disengaged and picked her coffee up to sip at, covering her blush. Jeremy came into the kitchen. When he saw Elijah, he pulled the earbuds out of his ears. "Hey!"

"Hello, Jeremy."

"What happened to the dining room?" he asked Jenna. "It looks like something exploded in there."

"Uh, that would be my academic career that exploded. The abstract for my thesis is due to my advisor in two weeks. My _new_ advisor, who is an asshole, and hates me."

Elijah lifted a brow at her and sipped his coffee. Jeremy gave her an "alrighty, then!" and got a soda out of the refrigerator.

"Sorry. Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. To be followed by two more weeks of such days until I get that abstract written and turned in. Not to mention that many of those days will be all-nighters." Elijah did a mental face-palm. This was not sounding conducive to indulging his distraction.

Reaching into the freezer, Jenna pulled out a large yellow bag that said 'Pizza Rolls' and tossed it onto the counter while she pulled a cookie sheet out of the drawer beneath the stove.

Elijah picked up the bag and looked it over. "This is not food."

Jenna snatched the bag out of his fingers and held it protectively against her chest. "Shh, it's okay, babies, he didn't mean it," she crooned, petting the bag and earning a laugh from Jeremy.

"Hey, she's actually cooking tonight," he told Elijah.

Elijah lifted the bag out of her arms and put it back into the freezer. "Go get your sister. I'm taking you all out. For _actual_ food."

"Sweet!" Jeremy went to do as he was told.

Jenna crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. Elijah cupped her elbows in his hands, kissed her forehead, and slid her aside so he could put the pan away. "If you're going to stay up until all hours working, you can at least have a proper meal first." He gestured toward the freezer. "If you'd like, we can maintain the general theme and go to that little Italian restaurant over by the Falls." He went for his charming smile and held a hand out to her.

"You're making it kinda hard to be mad at you right now."

"That was the basic strategy."

Upstairs, he heard Jeremy knock on Elena's door. "Hey, let's go. Elijah's taking us to dinner. What? I don't know. Who cares? It's real food. Move!"

* * *

><p>"Seriously? She had them both in the chamber at once? And no one figured out what was going on?" Elena asked him, running the last of her ravioli through the thick tomato sauce. It had taken all of the appetizer course and half of the entree, but she was finally starting to loosen up. He wasn't certain whether her mood was a lingering effect of her earlier visit to the hospital, or a feeling of awkwardness more directly related to him.<p>

"Bess was one hell of a clever woman," he confirmed. "She didn't remain queen for as long as she was by being stupid. She knew how to handle her affairs."

"So, not so much 'The Virgin Queen,' then," Jenna said, taking a sip of her wine.

"Hardly."

Jeremy snagged the last bread stick from the basket. "Can I use this in my report?"

"Certainly," Elijah told him, drawing a hissed 'yesss' from the boy. "As long as you can cite a reputable historical account of it and include that in your bibliography," he added, smiling as Jeremy made a face. "I'm afraid 'a vampire told me' doesn't quite cut it in academic circles."

Elijah pushed his plate away, leaving part of his steak uneaten. Elena pointed at the bloody, rare meat with a grimace. "The cow might want that back, if you're not going to eat it."

"So, Henry the Eighth," Jeremy said. "Was he as unhinged as that TV show made him look, or did he..."

Sitting in a corner, facing the dining room, Elijah recognized the vampire when he left the bar and walked back toward the rest room: Justin, one of Sebastian's little toadies. He had last seen this particular troll when he was throwing him bodily out of Klaus's compound after Sebastian's last row with Klaus, 300 years or so hence. As he recalled, it had taken him staking and killing Sebastian six times that day before his fellow Original could be persuaded to try his fortunes elsewhere. Justin's presence here, now, could only mean one thing - word of Klaus's defeat was spreading to the other Originals, probably on the wings of a little bird by the name of one Katerina Petrova, who had been conspicuous in her absence of late. _Let the games begin._

"Excuse me for a moment," he said, laying his napkin on the table and rising.

The other vampire was waiting for him, leaning with one arm on the paper towel dispenser. Elijah had expected as much; he was of such nondescript appearance that if the vampire hadn't wanted to be seen, Elijah wouldn't have spotted him, not without being on the lookout for him. Elijah made a pretense of washing his hands while he waited for another gentleman to leave one of the stalls. The man cast an odd glance at the two of them standing there while he washed his hands. Once he'd left, Elijah stood in front of the door. "Justin."

"Elijah. Family dinner? How cozy and quaint. Unless, of course, you actually _are_ planning to have them for dinner."

"Why are you here, Justin?"

"You know," he said conversationally, moving away from the wall a step, "there are the strangest rumors flying around."

"Do tell."

"For instance, Sebastian heard this crazy story that you had somehow managed to kill Klaus. Which, of course, we all know is impossible."

"Well, if such is his 'knowledge,' it would appear that he has sent you on a fool's errand. I'm sure the restaurant will validate your parking on the way out." He turned to leave.

The other vampire zipped across the room and put a hand on the door before he could open it. "Is it true? Or is this all some ruse of Klaus's to lure Sebastian here?"

"Your lover thinks too highly of himself; Klaus never gave Sebastian a second thought once he was rid of him. Out of sight, out of mind."

Justin took a step into his personal space. "Cut the crap, Elijah. Is he dead or not?"

In the blink of an eye, Elijah had him up against the opposite wall, hand around his throat, feet dangling. "You appear to have forgotten how to speak to your betters. Sebastian may enjoy your_ lip_," he said, his tone emphasizing the double entendre, "but I do not. However, in the interest of ending this little dance, I'll tell you, yes – Klaus is dead."

"Then Sebastian demands an audience with you," he gritted out.

"Does he, now?" Elijah leaned in close and lowered his voice. "You tell your master that I'll be happy to lend him an ear anytime he'd like. In fact," he said, setting him on the floor, "why don't I send him yours?" Moving his hand up from Justin's neck, he grabbed the younger vampire's ear and ripped it off.

Justin let out a howl and clapped a hand over the wound. Elijah shoved his head down over one of the sinks so the blood would run into the basin and not all over the floor. "I suggest you stay there until that closes." Moving over to the other sink, he rinsed the blood off of his hands, then grabbed a paper towel to dry them.

As he was doing so, the door opened and a young male walked in, stopping cold when he saw Justin hanging over the sink, blood dripping into it. Elijah had his hand on the back of the man's neck before he could utter a word. Catching his eyes, he rolled his mind. "You saw nothing. You don't need to use the rest room after all."

"I don't need to go," the guy droned.

Elijah turned him toward the door; the youth exited and left. By the time Elijah turned back around, Justin's wound had closed, leaving a jagged scar where the ear had been. Given a couple of weeks, it would regenerate, with no permanent harm done. But perhaps the vampire would think twice about not showing the proper respect the next time.

Picking the ear up off of the sink, Elijah nudged one of the stall doors open. He tossed the ear into the toilet, flushing it. "The next time Sebastian wants to ask me a question, tell him to come do it himself." Tugging his jacket straight, he left the bathroom and returned to the table, picking up his napkin and draping it over his lap as he sat back down, smiling. "Who's ready for dessert?"

* * *

><p>Elijah kept his senses trained on the surroundings as they exited the restaurant, wondering if there were any other comers waiting to jump him and try their luck. He held Jenna's door open for her and closed it before going around to the driver's side, taking the opportunity to scan the parking lot. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.<p>

"Jeremy," he said, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot, "how would you like to continue the hand-to-hand training?"

"Yeah, I'd love to! Unless you're going to make me disembowel you again, or something."

Jenna's eyebrows threatened to climb off of her head. "Do what, now?"

"Nevermind," both Jeremy and Elijah said in unison.

"On a more serious note," Elijah began, catching Elena's eye in the rearview mirror, "How much does Bonnie's father know about her extracurricular activities?"

"Not… not really anything. He made it pretty plain early on that he didn't want to know about any of the witch stuff."

"So he has no inkling of what is going on with her other than the non-answers the doctors have been giving him?" Elijah could well imagine just how frustrating that must be.

"It doesn't seem like it," Jeremy answered.

"Is he on vervain?"

"I don't think so," Elena answered. "No. Bonnie thought, given everything that was going on, that it would be better for him to compellable, just in case a situation came up where she needed to have Stefan or Damon compel him."

Jenna turned sideways, as much as the seatbelt would allow. "_What?"_

"Why?" Elena asked him, ignoring her aunt.

"Maya, the witch I told you about? She and a cohort of hers should arrive in Mystic Falls sometime tomorrow to evaluate Bonnie and see if there is any sort of a magical intervention they can render. The problem," he said, gunning it through a yellow light, "is that she'll need to be removed from the hospital."

"Wait, Bonnie can't leave the hospital!" Jeremy said, sitting forward

Elijah frowned. "I was under the impression that she didn't require any life-sustaining equipment.

"Well, no, she's not on a respirator or anything, but she has IVs and stuff."

"Those can be administered in the home."

"Why can't the witches just go see her at the hospital?" he asked, agitated.

"Because at the hospital, there _are_ people who require life-sustaining equipment, and they can't chance causing a disruption to those. If they start throwing power around, that becomes a very real risk." Elijah had seen the phenomenon enough to know that sensitive electronic equipment and magic did _not_ mix.

"What does that have to do with her father taking vervain?" Jenna asked.

"I may need to compel him to take her home."

"Okay, wait," Jenna said.

Elena interrupted her. "Once she's home, what if they can't do anything to help her?"

"I guess we'll cross that bridge when – if – we come to it," Elijah answered grimly. He turned onto their street and slowed, signaling to turn into the driveway.

"You can't just – "

"So when do you want to talk to her dad?" Jeremy cut in.

"Maybe tomorrow after school, once I've had a chance to speak with Maya in person." He turned into the driveway and parked, killing the engine.

Jenna had her seatbelt off and was reaching for the door handle before the car had even finished rolling. She was up and out of the car in a hurry, picking up a good head of steam on the way to the door. Jeremy and Elena followed a little more cautiously, while Elijah brought up the rear.

"Jenna," Elena began, as they went inside.

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you people?" Jenna said, then turned and stormed toward the kitchen.

Elena and Jeremy looked at one another, and then at him. Elena nodded toward the kitchen and looked at him questioningly, pointing toward herself. Elijah shook his head and gestured them toward the stairs. They both shrugged, and retreated to their rooms. Elijah went down the hall to the kitchen, where Jenna was noisily and forcefully loading the dishwasher.

"Jenna – "

She whirled on him. "Don't you 'Jenna' me!"

He held his hands up in a 'don't shoot' gesture. "Okay."

"And just because you all are talking with your hands, it's still talking behind my back!"

He leaned back against the refrigerator. "Do you want to tell me why you're upset?"

"The three of you are talking about scrambling a man's brain to make him take his daughter – his comatose, teenage daughter – out of a medical hospital and take her home so some witches can mumble some magical, mumbo-jumbo juju over her!"

"There isn't anything that the medical profession can do for her. Her problem isn't medical."

"SO not the point!"

"Then what is the point?"

"You all act so fucking cavalier about _compelling _people to do things. You heard them: these _kids_ thought it best to leave the option to compel Bonnie's father open 'in case'? He is her_ father_! Her _parent_! Who the fuck are you – are all of you – to brainwash him so you can mess with his kid?" Jenna kicked the dishwasher door, which closed with a slam and the rattle of glass, as the top shelf wasn't pushed all the way in. "I mean, why bother to tell him what's going on with his daughter? Why bother to ask for his input – let alone his opinion – when it's just so goddamn simple to fuck with his head and do whatever you want to?"

So that's what this was about. "Why do I think we're not talking about Bonnie's father anymore?"

"Maybe we're not! Do you have any idea what it feels like to be lied to, and played with, like that? Well hell, how could you? You're the big, mighty, all-powerful vampire. You have no clue what it's like to be jerked around like a puppet, toyed with, controlled, overlooked and discounted. Just like you have no fucking idea what it's like to be a parent!"

Jenna stormed out of the kitchen into the dining room, and started tossing books off of the chair in front of her laptop, where she had piled them earlier. Elijah leaned against the doorway with his hands in his pockets and watched her, letting her expend some of her anger on the inanimate objects. She finally cleared the seat off and dropped into it, blowing out a sigh as she put her elbows on the table and ran her hands over her face.

"Five," he said softly.

She looked up, confused and irritated. "What?"

"Children. I had five children, before I turned," he told her, wondering why, even as he did so.

Jenna opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. "I… oh."

Elijah took a bag off of the chair around the corner of the table from Jenna and sat. "I do understand what you're saying about Bonnie's father. I do," he said, to forestall whatever she had been about to say. "But you heard what Elena said. He didn't want to know. About her being a witch, or any of that. Most people don't, Jenna. For the most part, it's better that they not know. It's safer that way."

"Until it's not."

"Until it's not," he agreed. "And then, when it wasn't anymore, I told you the truth."

Jenna looked down at her hands. "I know you did."

"Then let me ask you this: Do you think that Bonnie's father is in any sort of mental or emotional place right now to _hear_ this, let alone be asked to make an informed decision about it?"

She shook her head and whispered, "No."

Elijah reached across the corner of the table and took her hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it in a soothing gesture. "I'm going to do whatever I can to help that girl, Jenna. I owe her that. Right now, that means letting the experts – by whom I mean Maya and her partner – do what they can for her. If I have to deceive and/or compel her father to do that, then I will. It may be her only chance."

"I get it," she said, squeezing his hand back. "I don't like it, but I get it."

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into her palm. "I should go and let you get some work done."

Jenna groaned. "You had to say the 'w' word."

He suddenly had an idea. A wonderful idea. "Tell you what: after you hand in your abstract, let's go somewhere for the weekend and celebrate."

She gave him a sidelong look. "Is _that_ what the kids are calling it these days?"

"Something like that," he grinned.

She considered for a moment. "Okay. It's a date," she decided, blushing.

"Good." He kissed her hand again and stood. Jenna rose with him and walked him to the door. He pulled her to him for a lingering kiss before opening the door.

"I'm sorry," she said, when he released her mouth. "For what I said, before. It was stupid."

"No apology is necessary."

"Yes, it is. I guess, since I found out what you are, I haven't really stopped to think about the fact that you were human once, and what all that means."

Perhaps one day he'd tell her about it. Elijah kissed the tip of her nose and stepped away from her. "I'll call you tomorrow." He reached for the doorknob, stopped. "You know not to invite anyone you don't know into the house, yes?"

"Uh, yeah. Would have been handy to know a long time ago. Like when I invited you in, for instance."

"Well, I think that particular instance turned out okay," he told her, tucking her hair back. "Seriously, though, there will be those who want a shot at me, now that I've taken Klaus out of the picture. I don't want them to hurt you to get to me. Don't invite anyone in, no matter how innocuous they seem. And be careful when you're away from the house. Keep your eyes open, and if anything seems off, tell me. All right?"

"All right."

He leaned in for one more kiss. Which turned into two, then three, and so on, so that by the time he left he was distinctly uncomfortable, and counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds until he could finally – _finally!_ – be fully distracted.


	3. Chapter 3

**Yeah, looking through here, that's a lot of sittin'-and-talkin' scenes. I'll punch the next chapter up with some action. In the meantime, I totally want one of those bumper stickers.**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 3<strong>

When Jenna came down the stairs the next morning, Elena was already up. Not only up, Jenna realized; she had made coffee and prepared parfaits of yogurt, granola and fresh fruit, one of which she passed to Jenna along with a cup of coffee. She regarded her niece suspiciously as she slid onto the stool beside her at the breakfast bar. "You're not going to tell me you're pregnant, are you?"

"Uh, no. Vampire boyfriend. Not exactly an issue," Elena said, topping off her own coffee.

Jenna hadn't really thought about that. "Wow. That's true. Huh. I can see the bumper stickers now: 'Practice safe sex: Screw a vampire.'"

"Somehow, I don't think that's going to catch on," Elena said, laughing. "Anyway… I thought maybe we could talk."

"Okay…"

She swirled her spoon through the yogurt, making a trail through the fruit and granola. "I know you were really upset last night."

"Yeah. I was."

"And I realized we haven't really talked about everything from before. It's been so crazy since the ritual and everything..." Elena started segregating strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries into separate camps. Jenna wondered if she planned to eat it, or if she'd only made it to have something to do with her hands. "I hated lying to you," she said finally. "That was the worst part. All the lying."

Jenna took a sip of her coffee. "For something you hated doing, you did it for an awfully long time."

"I know. It wasn't supposed to be like that. At first, when Stefan told me and asked me to keep his secret, I didn't like it, but I didn't think it was going to hurt anyone. He said it was better for people if they didn't know, and I thought he was right. Then something happened, and then something else, and the lies just kept snowballing. Then it just got to the point where it was like, how do you even begin to tell someone all that? Where do you start?"

"After your evil twin made me stab myself might have been a good time," she suggested.

Elena winced. "I know. I just... I guess I thought we could handle it. Could handle Katherine, get things under control..." She raised a bite of the yogurt, then gave up on it, putting the spoon back in the bowl and pushing it away from her. "I'm so sorry, Jenna, and I need you to know that it wasn't because I didn't care about you, or didn't trust you, or didn't think you could handle it."

Jenna got up and grabbed the coffee pot, topping off both of their mugs. "I couldn't really blame you if you did think that. I haven't exactly been a candidate for the World's Greatest Parent."

"Jenna – "

"No, let me finish. There was a time, a very short time ago, when I would have said that I couldn't handle it. Just like I said I couldn't handle losing my mom and dad, or graduating college, let alone going to grad school. Or suddenly finding myself with a niece and a nephew to raise. There are still times I think maybe I can't handle it." She pushed Elena's hair back behind her shoulder. "I've made a lot of mistakes, too. With Jeremy, and with you. I was so worried that you wouldn't see me as 'Cool Aunt Jenna' anymore that I let a lot of things slide that shouldn't have. And I haven't set a very good example."

"For the record, can I just say that we're fine with you being 'Cool Aunt Jenna?'"

"So I can do things like let you go away for the weekend with your boyfriend?" She stopped and shook her head, marveling at her own ineptitude. "Who _does_ that?"

"Cool people?"

"_Any_way, the point is, we've both made mistakes. But, we have the opportunity to do things differently from now on. I need to be able to trust you and your brother. And I need for you to be able to trust me. I need to know if there is something going on, even if it's going to freak me out. It probably _will_ freak me out. But I still want you to tell me. Two-way communication from now on, okay?"

"It's a deal."

"Good. Now, in the interest of being a responsible parent, I'll point out that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and you should really eat that."

Elena made a face at her and pulled the bowl back over, sprinkling another spoonful of granola over it. "So, in the interest of that two-way communication, what's going on with you and Elijah?"

_And already that one bites me in the ass. _"Uh… well, we… I… this is really good!" she punted, stuffing a big spoonful of yogurt and granola into her mouth.

Elena just gave her a raised eyebrow.

Jenna sighed. "We're enjoying each other's company, and seeing where it goes from there. That's really all there is to tell right now."

"Just be careful, okay? He's..."

"A vampire. Which you should have no problem with, considering you're dating one yourself."

"That's different. No, it is!" she said, when Jenna gave her the hairy eyeball. "Besides, what I was going to say is, he's dangerous."

"I thought that was sort of covered under 'vampire.'"

"Well, yes, but Elijah is big 'D' Dangerous, not little 'd' dangerous."

"He saved your life," she reminded her.

"And I'm glad. It's just... you haven't seen him do the things I have. He acts like this mild-mannered historian around you. But he can be scary. Really scary."

Jenna paused, spoon halfway to her mouth as a thought struck her. "Elena, you're not scared to have him in the house, are you?"

"No... No, not exactly. I just want you to be careful, okay?"

"Fine. I'll be careful, Mom."

Elena stuck her tongue out at her. Jenna responded in kind, making them both giggle.

"I will even go one better," Jenna told her. "I hereby do solemnly swear that Elijah will not be wandering the hall naked in the middle of the night, eating ice cream."

"Oh, thank you so much for putting that image in my head!"

Jenna waggled her eyebrows and downed her coffee. "I have to jet. I'll see you this afternoon."

Elena hopped off of the stool and hugged her. "We're good?"

Jenna hugged her back. "We're good."

* * *

><p>"Miss Sommers!"<p>

Jenna stopped when she heard the voice and rolled her eyes before turning around. "Professor Mitchell."

Hustling a little to catch up with her on her way to the student union, the Professor drew even with her. Jenna started walking again, him falling into step beside her. "I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, Miss Sommers. I'd like to offer my apologies. Can you join me for lunch?"

Well, that was unexpected. "Uh…"

"Please. I'd like to help you get that abstract together for the review panel. That _is_ my job, as your advisor, after all."

Jenna shrugged. "Um, okay. I guess."

He smiled. "Excellent. How about the café upstairs, here? It will be a little quieter than The Den."

"Sure." Jenna followed him up the granite steps on the outside the building, his keycard allowing them access through that door so they could avoid the noontime crunch of people in the building's grand foyer. She snuck curious glances at him as they worked their way through the lunch line, where she decided to forego the delicious-looking but gravy-laden shepherd's pie, opting instead for a lunch-with-a-man-I-don't-know-very-well salad. Their lunches purchased, he led her over to a table next to one of the floor to ceiling windows.

"I was a little hard on you yesterday, Miss Sommers," he began, once they'd seated themselves.

"First of all, call me Jenna, okay? Every time someone calls me 'Miss Sommers' I feel like some spinster librarian with a beehive hairdo and those pointy silver glasses on a chain, wearing a grey hounds-tooth skirt, a cardigan, and those ugly, sensible pumps."

He grinned and let out a chuckle. "Well, that's certainly… descriptive." He wasn't at all so fierce-looking when he smiled like that. In fact, he wasn't at all bad-looking, either.

"Fertile imagination," she admitted.

"Please call me Richard. At least when we're not in class."

"All right."

"Speaking of imagination, you did tickle my curiosity with some of your research on the supernatural." He took a bite of his club sandwich. "I know I said it didn't have the makings of a psychology thesis, and I stand by that, but it looked like an interesting collection of anecdotes and mythologies. What drew you to the subject matter?"

_Let's see, my ex-boyfriend's undead vampire wife showed up on my doorstep; my niece is a curse-breaking doppelganger; the previous doppelganger, who is also a vampire, compelled me to stab myself in the gut with a knife; said niece's friends are a witch, a vampire, and a werewolf, respectively; and I'm theoretically quasi-dating an Original vampire. _"Um, no big thing, I guess, really."

"Really? That was a pretty extensive collection of research for there to have been 'no big thing' spurring it on."

She chased an errant chick pea around her salad plate, finally cornering it against a broccoli floret and spearing it with her fork. "I don't know, there's been this explosion of vampire and werewolf movies, books and television shows over the last decade or two. And the 'Harry Potter' phenomenon. Some of those stories deal with supernatural creatures suddenly going public, and how society deals with that. I guess it made me wonder what would happen if that _did _occur, how would it affect us on some fundamental level."

"I see." Richard ate some potato chips, making her jealous. Stupid salad. "One of the stories you managed to collect was a little different than the usual run-of-the-mill stuff. Something about a werewolf curse, and a moonstone. How did that go, again?"

"Uh, that one… let me think…" She was treading on dangerous ground, here. She had never been able to lie convincingly to save her life. She decided to stay as close to the truth as possible, and just act like it was only a story. "If I'm remembering it correctly, that was the one where certain families were cursed to be werewolves, and then there was another curse that limited them to only changing during the full moon."

"How was it that a moonstone played into it?"

Jenna ate a bite of broccoli. _Yuk_. "I think the witches who cast the curse used the moonstone to hold the curse together. Probably whoever originated the story liked the symmetry of the moon and the moonstone."

"Weren't vampires somehow involved in the whole thing too?"

"Yeah. The same curse made it so vampires couldn't walk in the sun."

"And was there a way to break the curse?"

"Um, yeah, I think so. I can't remember the details very well," she fibbed. "What was it that interested you in that particular story?" she asked casually, though his honing in on the Sun-Moon Curse made her suddenly suspicious. Elijah had said to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. A faculty advisor, apologizing for being hard on a student, definitely fit that category.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "As I said, it was a little different than the usual fare. I often find it's the inconsistencies that can lead to revelation, not the dozens of repetitions." Jenna glanced at his hands as he took another bite of his sandwich – no ring. It was impossible to tell for sure under the button-up shirt, but Jenna didn't think he was wearing a necklace either. No lapis lazuli made it highly unlikely he was a vampire. That didn't mean he hadn't been compelled by one, though.

"So," she said, changing the subject, "my thesis." Jenna rattled off the basic structure of the outline she had worked on until 3:00 a.m. or so, and they spent the rest of the lunch debating what should be included, and in what order. Mitchell was actually helpful, and perfectly charming, with no trace of the previous day's surliness. She could definitely see why he had the reputation for being moody.

Having filled a page with notes she had jotted down during the conversation, Jenna glanced at her watch and realized she had ten minutes to get to her next class. "Yikes, I need to go." She stood and held her hand out to him. "Thank you for lunch, and for the work session. It's been really helpful."

He stood as well, and shook her hand, holding onto it for perhaps a moment longer than necessary. "My pleasure, Miss – Jenna. Um, say… what are you doing Friday evening?"

"Excuse me?"

He let go of her hand with a little laugh. "The department is holding a meet and greet for its faculty and Ph. D. candidates. It's an opportunity to meet with members of the panel, get to know the people who will be making the decisions as to who will proceed."

She blushed. _Jeez, Jenna, as if he were really going to ask you out. _"Oh, yeah. I remember getting a letter about that."

"I think you should come. It would be helpful to meet the committee in a less formal setting, before you have to pitch your abstract, when your nerves will be running high."

"But gee, I'm so poised under fire," she self-deprecated.

He smiled – and didn't argue the point. "It's at 6:00 p.m., over at the Arts Center. Wine, hors d'oeuvres, and pretentiously artsy exhibits will all be provided. Bring a date, if you like."

"I'll see if I can make it," she agreed.

"Then I'll look forward to it." He collected his briefcase and, nodding to her, deposited his tray on the return cart and headed out.

Jenna headed toward class, thinking about the mixer. This sort of thing seemed right up Elijah's alley. She'd call him later to invite him. Maybe he could tell her if there was something off about her professor, or if she was just being paranoid.

And, it wouldn't suck to finally go out on an actual date with Elijah, either.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Elijah's car was already there in the driveway when she got home. Judging by the noises coming out of the backyard when she got out of her car, he was giving Jeremy the promised sparring lesson. Rather than go into the house, she walked around to the back and leaned her arms along the top of the fence, watching.<p>

"You're tall, and you have a long reach," Elijah was saying, "which can be advantageous when you're fighting hand to hand, but it can also be used against you, as your center of gravity sits higher and can be more easily thrown off by grasping your limbs. Rather than relying on reach, I want you to try coming around the side and bringing your body in closer, like so." He showed Jeremy what he was talking about, nodding to her when he saw her standing there.

Jeremy did as Elijah had just instructed him, landing what looked to Jenna like a pretty hard punch to Elijah's kidney. She winced and decided to go inside after all. Setting her bag on the kitchen counter, she went straight to the coffee maker and started a fresh pot. Elena didn't appear to be home, yet. She was probably at the hospital, or with Stefan. Or at the hospital with Stefan.

'The boys' came in from the yard as the coffee finished brewing. "Done beating on one another for the day?" she asked.

"Yeah. I had to stop before I hurt him too badly," Jeremy told her, grinning and grabbing a package of cookies out of the cupboard.

"I quake at the thought of a rematch," Elijah answered drily.

Jenna handed him a cup of coffee as Jeremy thundered up the stairs to his room. "It looked like he was hitting you pretty good out there."

Elijah shrugged. "He may as well learn to do it properly."

She leaned up against the counter. "You're good with him. He seems to look up to you."

"He's an adolescent male. He's going to look up to anyone who actually encourages him to engage in fisticuffs and weapons-play."

"Still…" Elijah had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves up for the lesson. His shirt had come untucked on one side; she briefly entertained the thought of sliding a hand up underneath it. Clearing her throat, she dug around in her bag until she came up with the crumpled and slightly torn letter regarding the mixer. "So, what's on your dance card for Friday evening?"

"Well, I had planned on grading papers and bemoaning a certain graduate student's dedication to preparing her thesis abstract, but I'm open to suggestion." He looked over her shoulder at the letter, running a finger down her arm as he did so.

Andie's comment about what vampires could do with their fingers recalled itself to her, unbidden. She shivered a little under the touch. The next two weeks could not possibly go by fast enough. While her brain might have a qualm or two about whether vampire sex constituted necrophilia, her body apparently had no such compunction; if she kept touching him, kept letting him touch her, she was going to spontaneously combust. Oh hell, who was she kidding? He didn't even have to touch her. He was such a damned dominant presence that she could _feel_ him all the way across the room. She was tempted to think it was part of the whole vampire mystique, but neither of the Salvatores had this effect on her. Just Elijah.

"I thought – " she had to clear her throat again, twice, as her voice came out all low and husky. "I thought it would be a good idea to go to this," she said, holding the letter up to him. "Both for the obvious reason, and because I need to know if there is something off about someone."

"Oh?"

"My adviser, the jerk-off that I was ranting about yesterday? He caught up with me today, apologized, and took me to lunch."

Elijah smirked that little smirk of his. "The cad!"

"_And_, asked a lot of questions about the Sun-Moon curse."

The smirk disappeared with a quickness. "Wait, what?"

"He read through my notes on vampire and werewolf stuff yesterday, and that was the story he chose to fixate on. So I'm wondering – "

His tone alone was enough to push her back against the counter again. "What in the _nine hells_ was that doing in your psychology notes?"

"I… I was thinking about changing my thesis to people dealing with, you know, if the supernatural were…" She swallowed, hard. "Did I forget to mention that?"

The look he shot her before whirling away from her had her flinching back from him even further. "Yes, Jenna. I think I would have recalled that," he said acidly. "What in God's name were you thinking?"

"Nothing! I mean – "

"_Clearly_."

"Okay, it was stupid! I get it! But it's not like I put it out there as a true story or anything. It was one of a series of myths and legends that I had jotted down to show him…"

Elijah paced back and forth across the room a few times, visibly wrestling his temper under control. Suddenly, what Elena had said earlier carried a little more weight. Elijah _could_ be scary. _Damn_ scary. She shut up and drank her coffee, hoping that if she kept quiet he would calm down, and she could bring the discussion back on point.

He eventually stopped, let out an explosive sigh, and came back over to the island, picking up his coffee again. "So, you want to know if he was asking merely out of curiosity, or whether he already knows something and is fishing for more specific information."

Jenna nodded. "He wasn't wearing a ring and I don't _think_ he had a necklace. He was out in the sun, so I doubt he's a vampire, but for all I know he could have been compelled. Would you be able to tell if he has been?"

"Perhaps. Yes, I'll accompany you to this and scope out the situation."

The front door opened and closed, and Elena came down the hall into the kitchen. "Oh, hey."

"Elena. I'm glad you're home," Elijah greeted her. "I need to speak with you and Jeremy. I have news. Would you go up and get him, please?"

"Um, sure."

Once Elena headed upstairs, Elijah turned back to her. Jenna sucked in her bottom lip and looked up at him through her lashes, going for cute and contrite. Elijah sighed again and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist; then, remembering that his shirt was untucked, she slid her hands underneath the fabric to touch his sides – all hard muscle – and his back, rising to her tiptoes to kiss him.

_God_, she wanted him. Scary or not, he did things to her insides that she didn't even think there were words for. Images danced behind her eyes, of taking his shirt off altogether, of touching all of that muscle, of him picking her up and laying her on the counter and having his way with her right there…

Elijah nudged her away from him just as Jeremy and Elena came around the corner into the kitchen. Embarrassed, she went to refresh her coffee while he gestured them to the family room to sit.

"Is this about Bonnie?" she heard Jeremy ask. "Did you talk to your witch?"

"I did. That's what I'd like to discuss with both of you." Elijah lowered himself into the chair. Jenna could have sworn he made a strategic and surreptitious adjustment as he did so, and thought it was perhaps fortunate that his shirt was untucked after all. Maybe she wasn't the only one going crazy with this unresolved sexual tension. The thought pleased her inordinately.

"I thought she had to be out of the hospital first," Elena said, tucking her legs up under her on the opposite end of the sofa from Jeremy. Jenna stayed leaning in the archway, cradling her mug between both hands.

"Maya felt confident that she could perform an evaluation of Bonnie's condition at the hospital without undue risk. She visited her today."

"So is it good news or bad news? Can she do anything?" Jeremy looked ready to come out of his skin.

Elijah looked him into silence. _Man. How does he _do _that?_ "It's both. Yes and no, good and bad. The way Maya explained it to me, there are two components to a witch's essence: that which is merely human and physical; and that which is metaphysical. Obviously, the two intersect in various ways, but they're by and large two different things."

"The doctors said that Bonnie seems fine physically, so it was the metaphysical part that was damaged?" Elena asked.

Elijah nodded. "Her brain – the physical organ itself – is whole and is functioning, which is why all of the autonomic systems, such as respiration, are working, and why brain scans show activity. She's in a coma, not brain-dead.

"The metaphysical part, though… to put it simply, it's burned out. There's nothing there anymore. Bonnie wasn't able to contain the amount of power she channeled without it destroying the vessel."

"I don't understand why that's keeping her from waking up, though," Jeremy said. "If her brain is okay… I mean, people who aren't witches don't even have that other part, right? So shouldn't she be able to wake up even if the witch part doesn't work?"

Jenna went over and put a hand on Jeremy's shoulder, squeezing gently, and silently willed Elijah to get to the point before he flew apart. The poor kid had lost two girlfriends already. Surely fate wouldn't be _that_ cruel…

Elijah seemed to consider for a moment. "Think of it like this: a person who is born blind uses his other senses to navigate through the world. It's normal to him, it's all he's ever known, so that's how he operates. Then take someone who is suddenly struck blind: he can still hear, he can still feel things with his body, but he doesn't relate to the world through those senses because he's never had to, he's always been able to see. Once he can't, he doesn't know how to navigate. He's lost.

"Though witches don't show outward signs of magical ability when they're small children, usually not until after they reach puberty, that other part is always there, and their experience of the world is always filtered through that. Take it away, and it's just like being blinded, but it's their mind that's blinded."

Elena picked up one of the throw pillows and hugged it to her stomach. "So what you're saying is, Bonnie's mind is just sitting there, afraid to move, because it can't make sense of the world around it anymore."

Elijah nodded. "That's an apt way to put it, yes."

"So what can we do about it?" Jenna asked, before Jeremy could. She kept her hands on his shoulders for support.

"Maya believes that if they can… 'wall off' the metaphysical part, then Bonnie's mind will stop reaching for what isn't there anymore and start figuring out how to work without it. The question, or the danger, I suppose, in doing so is how she'll be able to adapt to her new circumstances, mentally and emotionally. Which is why I wanted to talk to the two of you.

"There are some people, a few, who when faced with something like the amputation of a limb, or the loss of one of their senses, would choose not to go on. They can't face not being whole. Maya tells me that, for a witch, the loss of that part of herself is devastating, far worse than losing a physical part of the body. The two of you know Bonnie the best out of everyone. I need to know what you think she would want."

Unable to be still any longer, Jeremy fairly exploded up off of the couch and stalked to the window, looking out. Elena wiped tears off of her cheeks and went to him. "Jer?"

"We have to try. She'd be alive, Elena! That's what's important, right? She'd be alive."

"I know." Elena swallowed a sob. "But what if she can't take it? What if they do this and it's s-so awful and she can't t-t-take it?"

Jeremy gripped her shoulders. "This is _Bonnie_. She's tough, Elena. She's so tough." Elena nodded, sniffling. "You should have seen her, working out spells, totally ready to kick Klaus's ass… she was _fierce_. And she did it. She took him down. She's gonna do this too. We're gonna help her, and she's gonna do this too. Okay?"

Elena nodded again and hugged Jeremy, who sniffled a couple of times himself. Jenna couldn't stand it anymore. She retreated to the kitchen, ostensibly for a box of tissues, and shed a few tears of her own. She ached down to her soul for them; just kids, asked time and again to make life and death decisions that no adult should have to make. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, and there wasn't a goddamn thing she could do about it. And standing here in the kitchen wasn't doing a damn thing for anyone either. So she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and took the tissues into the family room.

Elena accepted the box gladly. Jeremy gave a couple of manly sniffs and passed. Jenna perched on the arm of Elijah's chair. "So what happens now?"

"Now we get Bonnie out of the hospital."


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry, guys. I know this is way later than normal, and a short one to boot. Thursday night's episode threw me COMPLETELY. Between all the new mythology I can't include, the abundance of highly squee-inducing Elijah-y goodness in the episode, and my nerve-wracking paranoia that he will not make it out of the season alive, I've been in an absolute state. A STATE, I tell you! So I wasn't so much on my game writing this. I'll try to do better the next section or two before this Thursday evening, when I will no doubt have all new reasons to hyperventilate.**

**Jeez. I'm almost looking forward to the summer hiatus at this point just so I can rest my nerves and chill the fuck out, y'all!**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 4<strong>

Elijah straightened and slipped the pen back into his jacket pocket, the breeze that swept the parking lot rustling the rough drawing he had done of the hospital wing that Bonnie was in. "Is everyone ready?"

"Totally! This is like, 'Mission: Impossible' or something," Caroline enthused.

"Hopefully not 'impossible,'" he said drily.

"Are you sure you can keep Bonnie's father away for long enough?" Stefan asked her.

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Pfft. Have you met me? I'll get him to go to the cafeteria with me and I'll talk his ear off. And if all else fails, I'll compel him to stay there."

"And Glamour Shots here isn't going to short anything out by lying in the bed and putting on the illusion that she's Bonnie?" Damon gestured toward Andie with his thumb.

"Glamours don't throw around disruptive energy," Andie assured him. "It'll be fine."

"Don't you have one of those… children things running around somewhere?" Damon looked around as though he feared the child would ambush them from behind a trash can, or one of the parked cars.

Andie rolled her eyes at him. "He's with Jenna. She's babysitting."

"What about Elena and Jeremy?" Stefan had checked his cell phone five times since they'd been standing there.

"I told them that this wasn't taking place until tomorrow. They can do nothing to help, and they would only be in the way," he explained, when Stefan gave him That Look. "They've gone to the library to do some research I recommended for their history papers. We should have time to take Bonnie and bring her back before they decide to pay her a visit."

"So, since _I'm_ helping with _this_ and can't use the time to study…" Caroline looked at him hopefully, batting her eyelashes.

"…you'll need to put in some extra long hours this evening," Elijah told her, quashing any notions of leniency or extra credit.

"SO mean."

"You're up first, Barbie," Damon told her, nodding toward the hospital's main entrance.

"No kidding, Ken," Caroline bratted at him. "Hey, shouldn't we have, like, walkie-talkies or something? You know, code names, 'the eagle' has landed…?"

"Yes. Because that wouldn't be conspicuous _at all_." Damon leaned down close to her. "And for the record? I am _totally_ G.I. Joe."

They gave Caroline a head start of about fifteen minutes or so to get Bonnie's father out of her room before Damon and Stefan headed in to cover their assigned exits. They would clear the way for him to remove Bonnie from the building, and be on hand in case someone did wander onto the scene and need an emergency compulsion to forget what they had seen. Elijah gave them a few minutes to move into position, then sent Andie in and pulled his car over close to the emergency exit, the alarm for which she had already shorted out.

Elijah parked and let himself in through the emergency door, moving quietly up the service stairway. He popped out on the second floor, only two doors away from Bonnie's room. Andie was already there, waiting to take Bonnie's place on the bed. He took a moment to carefully remove Bonnie's IVs; a quick glance at the bags hanging from the IV stand showed that they served only to hydrate and funnel nutrients into her. There were no medications to help with what was wrong with her.

Once he'd made sure everything was unhooked, he lifted Bonnie from the bed. Andie gave him a 'here goes nothing' look and lay down, pulling the blankets up over her. Mumbling an incantation under her breath, her form began to shimmer, like a mirage off of sun-heated pavement. Within moments, 'Bonnie' once again lay in the bed. Elijah nodded approval and, checking the hallway for pedestrians, slipped out of the room with Bonnie in his arms. He zipped down the stairs and bundled her into the car at speed to minimize risk of detection, and settled her into the back seat. Coming around to the driver's side, he sent a text to Damon; three or four minutes later, Damon appeared and got into the backseat with Bonnie.

The trip from the hospital to the Salvatore house, where they had agreed that Maya would set up, took ten minutes or so. Bonnie, held across Damon's lap to keep her secure during the drive, gave signs of neither distress nor of waking. Still, Elijah didn't relax until he had carried her inside, to the room that Maya had prepared for the spell work she would do.

Damon was already in the library when Elijah came back downstairs. He handed him a glass of whiskey, already well into one himself, as he came through the door. "I don't like it," Damon told him, pacing over to the fireplace.

"The whiskey?"

"No, not the whiskey." He demonstrated by downing the rest of the amber liquid and going back to the bar to refill his glass. "That was too easy."

"How do you mean?"

"No hiccups? No emergencies? No one popping out of the woodwork to throw everything into a tailspin?"

Elijah allowed himself a little smirk and sipped at his drink. "Contrary to the chaos _you_ engender in every harebrained scheme you come up with, Damon, I try to anticipate the contingencies and answer them beforehand. Hence the smooth operation."

"Right. You know, I totally should have realized that, what with how smoothly everything went at the sacrifice ritual and all."

"You survived it, didn't you?" Elijah settled himself into the deep leather chair.

"Let's hope _she_ does." He flicked a thumb toward the ceiling.

"While we have a few moments, there are some things of which you need to be made aware." Elijah finished the whiskey and set the glass aside. "I had a run-in the other night with a lackey belonging to Sebastian, one of the other Originals. Word of Klaus's demise is evidently making the rounds."

Damon sat down on the sofa opposition him. "What kind of a run-in?"

"He appeared at the restaurant while I was out with the Gilberts. He wanted to know if it were true, about Klaus. I suspect there will be others coming to confirm for themselves."

Damon stretched out and put his feet up on the coffee table. Elijah hid another smirk behind his hand when Damon opened a magazine and placed it under his shoes. He was finding himself increasingly amused by the younger vampire's OCD when it came to matters of housekeeping. "So, now that Klaus is gone, the rest of the Originals are going to show up here to see which of you has the biggest dick?"

He snorted. "Succinctly if inelegantly put, yes."

"And this Sebastian guy is the first to whip his out?"

"A direct confrontation isn't really his style. He'll wait until he can make an alliance with one or two of the others. In the meantime, I expect he'll continue to send his minions to complicate things for me."

"Will anyone ally with him?"

Elijah considered for a moment. "He may be able to persuade a couple of the others. I would estimate it at a 50/50 proposition."

"Have I mentioned yet how _glad_ I am you chose to stick around Mystic Falls?" Damon snarked.

He finished his drink and set the glass on the coffee table. _One... two... three..._ Before he could count to four, Damon had picked it up off of the wood and set it on another of the magazines. Elijah swallowed a grin. "Well, better here when they come for the doppelganger than elsewhere, wouldn't you say?"

"Wait, what?"

"There's still a doppelganger in play. There will be others who seek to break the curse."

He gave Damon a second for the implication to set in. "Elena is still in danger."

"I'm afraid she always will be, as long as she's alive and human."

Damon got up and paced over to the mantle. "Then we'll turn her."

"I've never gotten the impression that Elena desired to be turned."

"She wouldn't before, because of what Klaus did to Katherine's family when she did it." He gestured out the window, toward the newly extended terrace and pool. "Not an issue anymore."

Elijah frowned. "She had no other objections?"

"None that are relevant."

"Relevant to her, or relevant to you?"

Damon made that little facial shrug to which he was prone. "Details..."

An ear-piercing scream echoed down from upstairs, forestalling any further discussion. Both vampires were up over the stairs and into the spell room within a second. Bonnie was sitting up on the bed, restrained by Maya and her partner, screaming. Her eyes were open and wheeling around wildly, but they didn't appear to be registering anything in the room. Maya tilted her head toward the dresser. "There's a syringe there with a sedative," she said, over the screams. "Bring it to me."

Elijah fetched it and took Maya's position, holding Bonnie still so she could give her the injection. It took hold quickly; within a minute Bonnie had quieted and fallen back against the pillows, asleep.

"Is that a good or a bad indication?" he asked the witch, smoothing Bonnie's hair back where it had fallen forward during her struggles.

Maya dabbed surreptitiously at her nose, leaving a smear of blood across the backs of her fingers. "Good that she's out of the coma state. The rest... It will be a work in progress. Perhaps you can see that I get assigned as her 'therapist?'"

Elijah passed her a handkerchief and nodded. "I'll see to it. Can we move her back to the hospital?"

Maya nodded. "That sedative should keep her out for at least two to three hours. We'll clean up here and meet you over there."

Damon picked Bonnie up and headed downstairs. When he was out of the room, Elijah passed Maya a discreet envelope from his breast pocket. "This should cover any expenses you'll incur while staying here in town. Is there anything else you need?"

"No, we're fine." The witch started gathering candles and other items she had used during her ritual. "It's a good thing that you're doing, Elijah. With the academy," she added, when he looked at her blankly. "I know some of the people who have chosen to stay and help put it together. I think they're really hopeful that this means a new age for us. For all of us."

He lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug. "Klaus's idea of witches' conclave was never a bad one. His methodology, however..."

She squeezed his arm on her way past to straighten the bed. "You've made some powerful allies. Don't be afraid to call on them if need be."

Which had, after all, been the idea when he'd first bandied it back and forth with Andie, he thought to himself as he trotted down the stairs. With upheaval brewing amongst the ranks, he fully expected to be drawing help from that quarter.

Damon already had Bonnie settled once more in the back seat with him when Elijah reached the vehicle. "Not exactly encouraging, was it?" he said as Elijah pulled out of the driveway.

Elijah briefly met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "At least with her awake, they'll be able to begin helping her mind to transition from the old way of doing things to the new. You weren't expecting her to wake up and ask for a dish of ice cream, were you?" He thought her heard Damon mumble something like "it would have been nice." He considered commenting on the fact that Damon actually seemed to care, but decided it was better left unsaid.

A quick glance at the in-dash clock told him they would have her back at the hospital in just under the three-hour window he had hoped to remain within. Slipping his phone out of his pocket, he checked for any messages from the gang still at the hospital. One text, but it looked to be from Jenna –

A large, open bed truck, piled high with fence stakes, accelerated through a stop sign and came barreling at the side of the car. Elijah saw it and tried to swerve, but the truck caught the rear fender of his car, sending both vehicles spinning around. Several of the fence pickets came loose, shot from the truck bed by the centrifugal force as the truck spun and fought for control. "Get down!" he shouted at Damon, killing the engine and flattening across the front seats just as four or five of the pickets came crashing through the windows.

Two of the stakes scraped along Elijah's back as they came through the passenger side windows. A muffled oath, heard through the sounds of squealing tires and glass breaking, told him some had made it through the back window too. The car came to a sudden, crunching halt as the driver's side slammed up against a telephone pole.

Elijah pushed the pickets off of him and sat up, whirling to check the back seat. Damon had thrown himself down across Bonnie. His shirt was torn and Elijah could see several bloody welts rapidly closing up. A couple of the deeper cuts, imbedded with splinters from the wood, continued to seep blood. With the driver's side door encasing the telephone pole in a cradle of crumpled metal, Elijah pulled himself over to the passenger seat and tried the door; when it wouldn't pop open, he gave it a hard, two-handed push and knocked it off of the car altogether. He was out of the car in a split second and pulling the rear passenger side door off as well.

Extending his hand to Damon, he helped haul him off of Bonnie and out of the car, then crouched down into the back seat to check on her. The crash hadn't awakened her; she was still under the sedation. Elijah saw no immediate wounds or injuries – Damon's body had held hers in place and kept the wood and glass off of her. Her pulse, under his fingers, felt slow and steady, while her breathing appeared normal. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief and backed out of the car.

Damon was standing with his hands on the hood of the car. Elijah pulled the torn shirt away from his back and started removing the larger splinters. As he debrided the wood from each scrape, they closed and healed. "She okay?" he asked Elijah.

"She appears to be fine." He reached into his breast pocket for his phone, but came up empty; that's right, it had been in his hand when he had flattened across the seats. "Do you have your phone on you?" he asked.

"Yeah." Damon straightened and turned – and shoved Elijah violently to the side, darting in the opposite direction himself. One of the stakes smashed into the car where they had just been standing. It splintered, sending more shards of wood flying.

A man, somewhere in his forties, perhaps, pulled the now broken stake back. One side of his face was bloodied, as was his left arm. The driver of the truck, Elijah presumed. With a glassy-eyed, blank expression, he looked at Elijah and shoved the broken wood toward him. Elijah caught it easily and jerked it out of the man's hands. Catching him by the shoulders, he spun him around and pushed him against the car, grabbing his chin to hold his face still and looking into his eyes.

"He's been compelled," he told Damon.

"I'm guessing this would be one of those 'complications' you were talking about?"

"Mm." He slapped the man's cheeks a couple of times and caught his eyes, pressing at his mind extra hard to overcome the previous compulsion. "You will remember nothing of the accident." Once the man nodded in assent, Elijah squeezed his neck to constrain blood flow to the brain, releasing him only when the man passed out. Then he slung him over his shoulder and carried him back to the truck.

Sirens sounded in the distance. "Bloody hell! We don't have time to wait. Take Bonnie on foot and get her back to the hospital before anyone gets here. I'll have to deal with this mess."

Damon reached into the car and lifted Bonnie out of it, settling her into his arms. "Guess you hadn't anticipated the 'stake truck' contingency, huh?" He took off at speed, before the sheriff's car crested the hill, and before Elijah could reply.

* * *

><p>"Thank you for coming," Elijah told Jenna, walking over to her once he'd finished telling the deputy the version of events he wanted him to have.<p>

"Of course. Wait... Conner, come back over here!" She went to retrieve the boy, who was making tire sounds and smashing noises as he bounced back and forth between the car and the truck. The boy managed to elude her for a couple of passes, but she finally snagged him and swung him up to settle on her hip.

"Was it a big, big, big crash?" he asked Elijah, bouncing excitedly against Jenna.

"It was big enough," he decided. "We need to go the hospital," he told Jenna.

"What? Are you okay?" She pulled at his jacket, looking, he thought inanely, for bone or entrails sticking out of him or something. "I thought you healed – "

"Of course. I'm fine. But I need to check on Bonnie."

"Um... now? Why?"

He sighed, deeply. "Because we removed her from there earlier so Maya could perform the ritual to help her. We were on the way back when all this happened." He motioned to where a tow truck was hauling his car – what was left of it – up onto its flatbed.

"You _what_?" she shrieked, then flashed a look at the deputy and lowered her voice. "I thought you weren't doing that until tomorrow?"

"That's what I wanted Elena and Jeremy to think."

"So you lied?"

He winced and held his thumb and forefinger up with only a small space in between.

"Uh-oh! You're in big trouble! Lying is bad," Conner told him sagely. "I get a time-out if I lie. Are you gonna get a time-out?"

Elijah glanced at Jenna, who was giving him a black look. "It appears likely, yes."

Jenna put the boy in the back seat and got him buckled in while Elijah retrieved his phone from the floor of his car and called Damon. "Were there any problems?"

There was a pause on the other end. "Uh, define 'problem.'" He heard rustling in the background, then Elena's voice asking, "Is that Elijah?"

Elijah ended the call. So much for everything operating according to plan.


	5. Chapter 5

**I… think I got hijacked by my character again? Maybe?**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 5<strong>

"So how long are you going to leave him in the dog house?" Andie asked, picking mushrooms off of the slice of pizza on her plate. "Because he is being _super cute_ right now."

Jenna looked out the kitchen window, to where Elijah was occupying Conner with a slingshot they had made from a tree branch and a big rubber band. So far, Conner had missed the neighbor's cat, but with Elijah's help he had enjoyed slightly more success against the old iron birdbath. "I'm not sure 'cute' is the appropriate word to use for an ancient vampire." She pulled a piece of pepperoni off of her own pizza and stuck it in her mouth as Conner pegged a plastic flower pot and Elijah held the boy's hand up in a victory gesture. "He _is_ being pretty cute, though."

"Who's being cute?" Elena asked, coming into the kitchen and reaching into cupboard for a glass.

"Conner!" Jenna answered hastily, turning away from the window and pushing the curtain across. "Have you heard from Jeremy?" He had insisted on staying behind at the hospital, to be there when Bonnie came out of the sedation.

Elena nodded. "Bonnie woke up a little bit but she was pretty agitated, so they're keeping her under light sedation. They want to bring her out gradually." She wandered over to the counter and lifted the top of the pizza box, settling on a slice of the veggie pizza.

The back door opened and Conner came thundering into the kitchen. "Mama! I hit it! I hit the flower pot!" He leapt up into Andie's lap; only the quick reflexes of a mother with a small, active child made her set her pizza on the plate before he could upend it on the floor. "I'm gonna be a… um…"

"Marksman," Elijah filled in, coming in from outside.

"Yeah! A markthman! I want pizza!"

Andie caught him before he could hurl himself bodily onto the counter and the pizza. "Hands. Go wash them." She set him on the floor and turned him toward the half-bath down the hall. Conner hit the floor running and made engine noises as he ran toward the bathroom. Andie shook her head in amazement. "If only I could harness that energy…"

"Did Stefan leave?" Jenna asked Elena.

"Yeah. Homework." She pegged Elijah with A Look. Elijah looked distinctly unapologetic. "Speaking of which, I should get back to mine."

"Hold a moment, if you would, Elena," Elijah told her.

"Uh-oh… Mama!" Conner yelled from the bathroom.

Andie groaned. "Nothing good ever follows those two words," she said, getting up and going down the hall.

"I need to talk to you both about what happened today," Elijah told them. "It wasn't an accident. The driver of the truck had been compelled. And he was waiting for my car to go by."

"He was waiting for you?" Jenna pushed her plate away, pizza forgotten. "Is this what you were talking about the other night, when you said someone might be taking a shot at you?"

"Wait, what?" Elena asked.

"Time to go!" Andie said, coming through with Conner held out at arm's length in front of her. The wet stain on the front of his pants gave a pretty good indication as to the nature of the emergency.

"But I want pizza!" Conner yelled, kicking his feet as Andie carried him through the kitchen.

"We'll get some at home. Sorry, guys," she said as she passed Jenna. "I should remember to bring a change of clothes for him. I guess I'm a little rusty at this whole mom thing. Call you later."

"What's this about someone taking a shot at you?" Elena asked, once Andie had gone out the door.

The door opened again, and Andie poked her head back in. "Um, did someone order a new Lexus?"

"That would be mine," Elijah said, heading for the door. "I expect the keys will be in it." He followed Andie out, presumably to move the car.

Elena turned to Jenna. "What is he talking about?"

"The other night he told me he was worried about some of the other Originals coming after him, now that Klaus is gone." She grabbed some plates to start tidying up; set them down, took a glass to the sink; rinsed it and set it back on the counter again.

Elena took the stack of plates and opened the dishwasher. "You okay?"

Jenna gave up on the pretense of straightening up and leaned back against the sink, arms crossed. She wished that she hadn't eaten the pizza; she could feel it swimming around greasily in her stomach, pitched to and fro on the waves of sudden anxiety that Elijah's words had churned up. "Is it always like this?"

"Is what always like what?"

"Is there always some life-and-death emergency on the horizon? Someone who wants to eat/kill/sacrifice someone else? Can't vampires just be accountants and collect postage stamps and watch 'American Idol' like normal people?"

"Aunt Jenna, I think you need to be realistic about your expectations. There are much better shows to watch on Thursday nights than 'American Idol.'" Elena grinned impishly at her and turned to get a drink out of the refrigerator. "How do you feel about stamp collecting," Elena asked Elijah, as he came back through the door.

"Excuse me?"

"Ignore her," Jenna told him, rubbing her stomach. "So. This accident. Or non-accident, as the case may be?"

"There isn't much more I can say. It was obviously intentional. I don't know who compelled the driver, but I have a fairly good guess. There was a vampire at the restaurant the other night who is aligned with one of the other Originals; I'd peg him as the most likely culprit. Though I did give him some… encouragement to leave town."

"But… they had to have known that wouldn't kill you," Elena said, frowning.

"Not me, no. But it could very well have killed anyone who was with me." Elijah drummed his fingers on the counter, biting his bottom lip as he seemed to consider something. "I'd like to have a security system installed here, if you'll allow it."

"Vampires can't come in unless they're invited," Jenna pointed out, swallowing another wave of nausea.

"Vampires, no. Compelled, or even hired humans _can_." He looked over at Elena. "There is also the matter of your safety."

"_My_ safety?"

"Klaus may be dead, Elena, but you are still a doppelganger, and there are still vampires and werewolves out there who want to break the curse. Surely you've thought of this."

Elena's expression of dawning realization made it clear she hadn't. "I… I guess I just thought, after Klaus was gone…"

Jenna pushed away from the sink to go to her, but the movement sent her head into a sudden tailspin. Her stomach lurched as the wave of dizziness put the room at a drunken tilt. Saliva filling her mouth, Jenna clapped a hand over it and ran for the bathroom. She had just enough time to slam the door, drop to her knees and raise the seat before the first wrenching rush came up, followed swiftly by more as she was completely and thoroughly sick.

She hung there over the toilet, dark spots dancing in her vision, until she was sure it had passed. When she had gone a couple of minutes without retching, she reached up to push the handle and leaned back against the wall in a cold sweat, eyes closed. A few minutes passed, then a timid knock sounded at the door. "Jenna? Are you okay?" Elena asked.

Jenna opened her eyes and groaned as the light speared into them. "I think I'll live," she answered thickly. "Unfortunately."

"Okay…" She heard Elena pad back down the hall, and low voices in the kitchen, the words indistinct through the closed door and the buzzing in her head. She turned so her cheek pressed against the cool wall, sitting there until the very thought of movement no longer made her want to hurl again. Climbing to her feet, she went to the sink and cupped her hands under the water, drinking some in to rinse her mouth out. That accomplished, she decided she felt partially human again.

Elena was just putting the last of the food into the refrigerator when she rejoined them in the kitchen. "Sorry. Apparently pepperoni and attempted murder are volatile when mixed. Who knew?"

Elijah squeezed her hand. "My apologies. I didn't wish to upset you."

"I'm fine. It's fine," she said, squeezing back. "I think I'm just going to go brush my teeth for five hours and call it a night, though. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Jenna left them in the kitchen, twin looks of concern on their faces, and hauled herself up over the stairs. Crawling into her pajamas, she brushed her teeth and started her nightly getting-ready-for-bed ritual of removing make-up, washing her face, moisturizing. She wasn't even sure when the tears started, but when she lay down in bed, her cheeks were wet with them.

Curling up, she pulled the extra pillow – the empty pillow – over and hugged it to herself. Unimaginable as it may have been a few weeks ago, she missed the 'simplicity' of worrying only about raising her orphaned niece and nephew. She missed thinking that vampires and werewolves and witches – oh my! – were just creatures out of books and horror movies. She missed having the phone ring and not being terrified to answer it for fear of what new crisis loomed. She missed going to bed and having someone to curl up with, tell jokes with, discuss the day with.

She missed Ric.

Curled around the pillow, alone, Jenna cried herself to sleep.

* * *

><p>Jenna had half hoped that she would still be feeling under the weather when she woke, so that she would have a viable excuse to stay home rather than go to campus, but she woke feeling hail and hearty, if somewhat sandy-eyed from the crying jag. Since she couldn't in good conscience skip class for no reason, she showered, dressed, and drove to the campus.<p>

One the way, she dialed Andie, but it went straight to voicemail. Speaking of voicemail, there were two waiting for her. One was from Elena, saying she would be stopping at the hospital after school. The other was from Elijah, expressing concern for her health and saying he'd call her later. Jenna erased the messages and tossed the phone back into her bag.

Her impromptu pity party of one notwithstanding, she had to admit that Elijah had sure as hell been a lot more honest with her than Alaric had ever been. And she couldn't argue that he treated her well. She didn't think she had ever dated anyone with such impeccable manners. Oh hell, who was she kidding? She had barely dated anyone who didn't think belching the alphabet was the height of accomplishment. And what was up with him just having a new car delivered, out of the blue? She hadn't even heard him make a phone call. Were vampires like the Mafia or something?

She could have asked him to stay the night before, she supposed. Although asking someone you hadn't had sex with yet to sleep – _just _sleep – with you seemed like a bad idea, especially with an upset stomach. Nothing said 'baby, take me!' like being vomited on. Hey, did vampires even sleep? She'd have to ask. She was sure they didn't get sick –

Out of her peripheral vision, she saw the rounded, red hood of a Volkswagen jut out into her path. She hit the brakes hard and swerved to the left, which made the oncoming minivan swerve to avoid her. Once past the VW, she was able to pull back into her own lane and pull off the side of the road, shaking. Remembering what Elijah had said about his "accident," she looked in her rearview mirror at the VW. A blond girl, maybe all of sixteen, had pulled to the side of the road as well, and was getting out of her car. Jenna shot a hand over to the passenger seat to grab her phone; her hand hit nothing but air, her bag having crashed into the mess of papers and garbage on the floor when she had stomped on the brakes.

Not sure what to do, but not wanting to be trapped in the seat of her little car, Jenna hastily got out as well and stood facing the girl, adrenaline screaming through her system and making her jittery as the fight-or-flight response tried to take over. To do which, Jenna wasn't sure. She tried to visually frisk the girl for weapons, though if she were a vampire she wouldn't exactly need a weapon; her own strength would be weapon enough. Nothing in her hands except a cell phone…

"Are you okay?" the girl asked as she drew near. Two big tears coursed down her cheeks. "I am so, so sorry! I was reading a text and I didn't see the stop sign. We don't have to call the police, do we? My dad will _kill_ me!" she sobbed.

Jenna let the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding out in a rush. "Uh, no," she said, shakily. "Nobody hit anyone else, so I guess there's no damage done."

"Oh my god, thank you so much!" The girl sniffled and wiped a sleeve across her eyes, and might have hugged her had Jenna not lurched back when the girl leaned toward her. _Jesus, Jenna. Paranoid much? It's just a kid, not paying attention._ "I will be in SO much trouble if my parents find out."

Jenna sighed deeply, trying to relieve some of the tension coiled in the pit of her stomach. "It's okay. Just do yourself, and everyone else on the road, a big favor and leave your phone alone while you're driving, okay?" She gave herself a mental raspberry for the fact that she had just been doing the same thing.

"Totally! Thank you." The girl turned around and walked back toward her car, calling someone as she went so that she was already back on the phone by the time she got back into her vehicle. It _did _look like she ended her call before driving away from the curb, though.

Jenna got back into her own car as well, grabbing her bag from the floor and shoving books and notebooks back into it while she gave her nerves a minute to settle. She wondered if maybe it was time to think about trading the mini-Cooper in for something a little bigger and safer.

Like maybe a tank.

* * *

><p>The whole ordeal, combined with the stop that Jenna made for some therapeutic doughnuts to overcome it, made her almost half an hour late to her first class. That in turn gave her whole morning a rushed and off-kilter feel, so that by the time she dragged herself to the student union for lunch, she was grumpy, exhausted, and out of sorts. Consequently, she was less than thrilled when Suzanne, one of her fellow grad students, invited herself to sit with her.<p>

"Jenna! I've hardly even seen you this semester. How are you?" the bubbly little redhead asked, settling in across from her.

"Been better. How is your abstract coming along?"

"Oh, I've had that done for weeks now," she said offhand. Jenna wondered how much trouble she'd get into for hitting her. "That's right, you got Professor Mitchell for an advisor, didn't you?"

"Yep. Lucky me." Jenna pushed her tray aside, leaving half of her beef stew still in the bowl. Given her sickness the night before, the doughnuts and extra coffee had maybe not been the best idea in the world, especially when combined with the adrenaline rush from the near accident.

"Oh, he's not so bad. I'm TA-ing for his abnormal psych class this semester." And with Suzanne, Jenna thought uncharitably, the 'T' and 'A' in this case could go either way. The redhead was about as subtle as a tornado in a trailer park.

"Yeah? Any tips on how to deal with him?" Jenna asked, giving in to cafeteria boredom and shredding her napkin. "He seems to run pretty hot and cold."

"Oh, he's a little weird at first, but he chills out once he gets to know you." She stopped, a thoughtful look on her face. "Or maybe you just get used to him."

Jenna highly doubted it. "Are you going to this mixer tomorrow night?"

"Definitely! You?"

"Yeah. Professor Mitchell actually recommended I go. I get the feeling he thinks I'm going to need all the help I can get when it comes time to present my thesis abstract to the committee."

"Yay! I'm so glad you're going to be there. Are you bringing anyone?"

"Mm-hm. A guy I'm seeing. He teaches history at Mystic Falls High."

"Oh, that Ric guy? You showed me photos of him when we were doing that clinic rotation. He's a hottie!"

_Awkward._ "Uh, no. I broke up with him, actually. I'm seeing someone new. His name's Elijah."

"I'm sorry. I must be mixing them up. I was thinking Ric was a history teacher."

"Heh. Yeah… funny story, that. Ric left town after we broke up. Elijah took over his teaching position."

Suzanne stopped mid-chew and gave her the eyebrow treatment. "Okay… So is this history teacher fetish something new, or is there some deep, dark, scandalous secret from your high school past that you're not sharing?"

Jenna had to laugh. "Nothing salacious, I'm afraid. Mrs. Murray was about sixty years old, and she was just not that hot."

"Speaking of hot teachers, where would you rate Professor Mitchell on the hotness scale?" she asked.

"Probably somewhere in between 'he's my advisor' and 'I'm not even going to think of him that way?'"

Suzanne stuck her tongue out at her. "I think he's kind of handsome. Maybe it's the beard. It makes him look…"

"…like a lumberjack?"

Suzanne kicked her lightly under the table. "No! He looks distinguished."

"Hey, whatever does it for you."

"Oh, shut up. Here, eat half of this brownie. I want to fit into my cocktail dress Friday night."

Jenna waved it away. "No thanks. I ate two doughnuts this morning and they're still fighting the good fight."

"Well… I DO have to carry a bunch of equipment this afternoon. I'm sure I'll work it off!" she decided, lighting into the brownie. "Professor Mitchell has this slide show to do, but none of the slides were digitized, so I have to bring this huge – " In making a sweeping gesture with her arms to demonstrate, Suzanne knocked her glass of soda onto the floor. "Dammit! Jen, could you grab me some more napkins out of that dispenser over there?" she asked, getting on the floor and dabbing at the puddle with the two napkins she had.

Jenna walked over and grabbed a wad of napkins, hauling her bag out of range of the liquid when she came back with them. It looked to have escaped unscathed. Not that one more stain would really signify at this point, but still. She saw the opportunity to escape and took it. "I'm going to run over to Barrowman. They're starting a series of clinical trials this afternoon," she said, swinging the strap over her shoulder.

"'kay. See you tomorrow, Jen."

"Yeah. Tomorrow."


	6. Chapter 6

**sigh. I think I've lost all semblance of control over this story.**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 6<strong>

When Elijah entered his classroom that morning, Caroline was already there waiting for him. "Miss Forbes," he greeted her, drawling the 'r' a bit as he set his briefcase down. "You're out and about early. Not here seeking an extension on your paper, I hope."

"No, you're a hard-ass, we get it. Which I will totally forgive, by the way, if you keep doing that 'Miss Forrrbes' thing, because hello, _hawt_! No, actually, since you're a teacher here now and everything, I want to recruit you."

"Recruit me?"

"For one of the event planning committees. Instead of doing a Harvest Festival, because boring! I was thinking we should do a Ren Faire. And since you're a history teacher, you'd be the perfect faculty advisor for it."

Elijah closed his eyes for a couple of beats. When he opened them, she was still standing there, and still looking at him expectantly. "Surely you jest."

"No, I'm serious! Look, here's what I've got locked in so far." Pulling out a three-ring binder marked 'School Events,' Caroline flipped to the designated tab. "I want to give it the feel of an outdoor market over here, which is where there will be vendor booths, then a stage over here with medieval type entertainment, like dances and plays and stuff, and _then_..." she pawed through the different pages until she came to another drawing. "I want to have fencing demonstrations and a jousting tournament. That's where you would come in."

Raising an eyebrow at her, he took the notebook from her and flipped through the pages she had included regarding the event. In addition to drawings and diagrams, she had listed out what each component would need, and had organized contact lists, letters of support, cost estimates, a list of paying participants... any number of organizational details. He had seen top level corporate executives with less organizational acumen. "It looks like you've already done quite a lot of work on the project. I'm impressed," he said – and meant it.

"The only thing I need now is a member of the faculty to sign on to oversee, and someone to train the people who want to participate in the fencing and the joust."

"Shouldn't you hire professionals for that demo? You can't be expecting students to do any jousting." He was fairly certain the school board would frown upon the death-by-impalement of its high school students.

"Well, with modifications, sure! I mean, we'll need to plan on safety equipment and measures and stuff, but I think we can do it. Besides," she lowered her voice. "Whenever we have some kind of a school event, it always seems like we get attacked by vampires or something. So it would be _really_ good if you were around." Caroline closed her binder up and slid it back into her backpack, giving him that sweet-yet-steely head cheerleader smile. "Can I sign you up?"

"What are your plans after high school, Caroline?" he asked, apropos of nothing.

"Huh? Um, college, I guess. I mean, that always was the plan...why?"

"We'll have a more detailed discussion regarding your future at another time. For now, yes, I'll sign on for your event."

The girl let out a little squeal and pressed her hands together delightedly. "Thank you so much. This is going to be epic! I _knew_ I could pull this off. Hah! Suck it, Dana!"

"I'm glad I could be of assistance in your game of one-upsmanship," he said drily. Another skill that would serve her well as a vampire.

Caroline set her backpack down at her class desk. "Um, there's something else I kinda wanted to ask you."

"All right." Elijah leaned against his desk, arms and feet crossed.

She hesitated fractionally, then plunged ahead. "Do you know any women… you know," she looked around, though they were clearly the only ones in the room. "…_vampires_?" she finished in a stage whisper.

Elijah's lips twitched, but he stifled the grin. "I do. Several."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, of course you _know_ some." She huffed out a sigh. "What I meant was, do you know of anyone I could, you know, _talk_ to? The only other woman vampire I know is Katherine, like _as if_."

"What is it you need to talk about?"

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. "Like, you know. _Woman stuff_."

"I…" _No, don't ask for details you don't want, Elijah._

Too late. "It's just that things with Matt were all like 'Mmmm,' but I was all like 'Rawr!', so I had to be all distant and stuff, and then there was everything with Tyler, but then Matt said he loved me, but _then_ Tyler kissed me, and everything was all 'OMG!' but then he was just all 'whatevs' while the werebillies were attacking me, and I was _so_ mad, so when he apologized I was all 'talk to the hand!' But then he came back and we talked, and the ritual happened, and Tyler was all like 'Grrr!' and I was all 'No!' and he totally ran off and didn't eat anyone, and I think I may kind of like him, but what if I get all like 'Rawr' again and _he_ gets all 'Grrr!' and…" She heaved an enormous sigh. How she had the breath left to do so, he couldn't imagine. "I just really need someone to talk to."

"Okay. Well, I – "

"I mean, what if I make a mistake and bite him and drink some of his blood? Is that poisonous, like if they bite us? And what about saliva? Because when he kissed me before there wasn't like tongue or anything."

Elijah scrubbed a hand over his face. He was beginning to feel marginally sympathetic toward Damon. "I think I know someone I can – "

"And for that matter, what about other, you know, _fluids_ and stuff? Like if I went – "

"_Caroline_."

"Huh?"

"Stop. Talking."

"Oh. Okay," she said, looking chastened.

"I have someone in mind. I'll put in a call to her. All right?"

"Um, 'kay."

"Was that all?" _Please, Dear God, let that be all._

"Yeah. Thanks."

"You're welcome." Elijah began taking out his lesson plan and notes for the day, thinking that perhaps adopting some of Klaus's demeanor might not be a thoroughly bad idea. Surely Klaus had never had to deal with a newborn vampire's sex questions.

The warning bell rang; within a few minutes, students were filing in for their first period class. Elena and Stefan arrived in the first wave. He motioned Elena over as she came through the door. "How is your aunt his morning?" he asked, in a low voice.

Elena shrugged. "She got up and went to class, so I think she's okay."

"Good." He left it at that and let her take her seat.

Matt Donovan, Caroline's 'Mmmm' in question, strode in and walked up to Elena's desk. "Elena, I can't believe you never told me!"

Elena darted a quick look at Stefan and at Caroline. "Told you what, Matt?"

"That you have a twin sister! You never even told me you were adopted. Why didn't you say anything?"

Stefan looked over at Elijah with an 'oh shit!' expression. "Matt, what… where did you see my… sister?" Elena asked him.

"I walked in and she was trying to open her locker, and I thought it was you, but I couldn't figure out why you had changed lockers. I can't believe you weren't going to tell me – here she is."

Sure enough, Katerina came sauntering through the door, dressed in an outfit straight out of some teen male sex fantasy: plaid microskirt, button-up shirt that was unbuttoned down to _there_, and thigh-high black leather boots. Her hair was unbound, and framed her face in a riot of curls. She had a notebook and a couple of textbooks carried in one arm. With a wicked glint in her eye, she came up to Elijah's desk and handed him a piece of paper that turned out to be a note from the guidance office, showing 'Katherine Pierce' as a transfer student, assigned to his first period history class.

All conversation in the classroom ceased for a moment, the charged silence quickly giving way to heated whispers as the students who were _not_ named Elena, Caroline or Stefan darted looks back and forth between the two doppelgangers. Elena shot him a desperate '_do_ something!' look. Katerina had picked her moment beautifully, however. There was precious damn little he could do about it, given the present circumstance.

Elijah set the paper on his desk and gestured toward the desks. "Take a seat, Miss Pierce."

Matt motioned toward an empty desk next to his. "Hey Kat, over here."

Katerina smiled at him and moved down the row, pausing next to Elena. "I can't believe we're finally going to the same school, sis!" she told Elena, before moving on to Matt. "Thank you so much for helping me with my locker, Matt. I can't believe I couldn't get the combination right." she told him sweetly, batting her eyes at him.

At least, Elijah thought morosely, he now knew Katerina's whereabouts.

"Miss Pierce, perhaps you could remain a few moments to go over the syllabus," he suggested when the bell rang, signaling the end of first period.

"Of course. _Mr. Smith_."

Elena, Stefan and Caroline all shot him looks with various levels of pleading as they left the classroom. Elijah brought up the rear, intending to close the classroom door to have a little _chat_ with his newest pupil.

"You should probably leave that open," Katerina suggested. "It wouldn't look good – a male teacher, a female student, behind closed doors… What would people say?"

Elijah shut the door firmly and had her down across the desk a fraction of a second later. "What on earth are you playing at _now, _Katerina? A high school student? Really?"

"Who's asking? Elijah the Original Vampire, or 'mild-mannered history teacher Mr. Smith?'" she mocked.

Elijah released her throat with a scowl and took a step back. Katerina sat up, crossing her legs as she perched on the edge of the desk, which inched the tiny skirt up even further. "Why are you here, Katerina?"

She fluffed her hair up, shrugging. "Building a life. You know, now that I'm not running for mine. Isn't that what I was supposed to be doing?" she asked innocently.

He sighed deeply. "And you thought it best to do that by remaining in Mystic Falls? And going to high school?"

"Where else was I supposed to go?"

"Anywhere _but_ here?"

"I happen to like it here," she said archly. "And if I wanted to stay, there had to be a reason for Elena and I to look alike. The twins separated at birth and adopted out to two families thing seemed like the most logical story to go with. And if I'm supposed to be her twin, then it would be odd if I didn't go to school, wouldn't it?"

He supposed he really couldn't argue with the logic, as far as it went. Stepping forward again, he took her chin in his hand, tilting her head up. "Do not mistake my previous leniency for _carte blanche_ to run around causing trouble, Katerina. If you become a problem, I will end you. So, I will expect you to be on your best behavior."

"Well, what fun would that be?" She shot him a coy little sideways glance and hopped down off the desk. "I think I have English next period."

Elijah caught her arm before she could slip out the door. "I have enough to worry about right now, Katerina, without having to worry about you, too.

She leaned into him, bringing her lips close to his ear. "Then don't worry." A second bell rang, indicating the start of second period. Elijah released her as the door swung open and his next class started filing in. One more wicked little glance over her shoulder at him, and she left, causing a male student to walk into the door frame when he turned to stare at her retreating form, as another let out a wolf whistle, setting off what was sure to be a cavalcade of testosterone-driven nonsense throughout the school's male populace.

Elijah shook his head. Absolutely no good could possibly come out of this.

* * *

><p>During the fifth period study hall that he had to baby-sit, Elijah alternated between sending out text messages and watching Katerina as she insured that no male in the room paid attention to anything but her. Marcus and Sophia were still in the area; Sophia agreed to come back to town and meet with Caroline. Elijah thought about warning her just what she was getting into, but afraid that she might change her mind, he opted to keep that information to himself. He sent a few texts to various people keeping an eye on things for him in New York, one to Maya to check on Bonnie's progress, and one to Damon to warn him about the Katerina situation. The handful of text messages he sent to Jenna went unanswered.<p>

When he still hadn't heard back from her by the time he was finished for the day, he called. It rang several times, then kicked over to voicemail. Growing concerned, he waylaid Elena as she came out of her last class of the day. "Have you heard from Jenna at all today?" he asked, walking down the hall with her as she went to her locker.

"No, why?"

"She hasn't responded for a couple of hours. Given everything that's going on..." He gave her a meaningful look.

"Here, I'll try her." Elena took her own phone out and dialed Jenna. Just as it had when he had called, it rang and then went to voicemail. "That's weird," Elena said, pocketing her phone with a frown. "Today is her early day, she's usually done with class by lunch time." She looked past him, down the hall. "Jer!"

Elijah turned to see Jeremy walking toward them. "Hey. So, Katherine: WTF?" he asked as he drew near.

"I'll deal with it," Elijah told him shortly. "Have you heard from your aunt at all today?"

He shook his head. "No. Why, is something wrong?"

"She's not answering her phone," Elena told him.

"You said she was sick last night. Maybe she's taking a nap. Or she's working on her thesis and turned off her phone," Jeremy suggested.

_Maybe I'm just getting paranoid, like Klaus_. "I'll swing by the house and check on her."

"Do you want us to head home?" Elena asked.

"No. Go on ahead to the hospital. I'll call if there is a problem. It's probably just as you said: she's either sleeping or preoccupied." _Or in some kind of trouble from Justin or God knows who else. If I'm being paranoid._

On his way to the parking lot, he called Andie to see if she had heard from Jenna, but struck out there too. If he were brutally honest with himself, the whole lot of them would likely be better off if he just returned to New York until the fallout from Klaus's demise had settled, but he feared that if he left now it would be too little, too late, and he'd only be leaving them unprotected. Busy with his phone and with retrieving his car keys, Elijah didn't look up until he was only a couple of car lengths from his vehicle. When he did, he stopped dead.

Two figures stood flanking the car. The man stood on the passenger side, his powerful arm leaned casually on the roof of his Lexus. At around 6-foot-5, he topped Elijah's height by several inches. His sand brown hair has been chopped into one of those spiky, unkempt hairstyles that were supposed to be stylish. The woman leaned against the driver's side, arms crossed in front of her. Only a few inches shorter than the male, her hair was as long and as red as Elijah remembered it. Both were well-dressed, muscular and athletic. And both were Originals.

Elijah resumed walking, keeping his eyes on both of them, and he perhaps put just a bit more swagger into his step. The woman straightened and walked toward him as he neared the front of his car. He stood his ground, hands hanging loosely at his sides, letting her approach. She stopped mere inches in front of him, looking him up and down appraisingly. He quirked a brow at her (and wasn't it annoying that he had to look _up_ at her to do so) and waited, his peripheral vision trained on the man.

She ended the stand-off first. Closing the distance between them, she grabbed him into a bone-crushing hug and practically lifted him off the ground. "Elijah, you son of a bitch!" She loosened her grasp on him enough to pull back and look him in the eye. "You actually – _finally _– took that bastard out?"

"I did," he confirmed, which got him squeezed against her once more. He flicked a glance over at the man. "Little help here?" he asked, his voice coming out half-strangled.

"Hilda, let the man breathe," he told her. Hilda released him reluctantly. He drew in a deep breath – which promptly left him in a whoosh when the man snatched him up into a bear-hug. This time, his feet _did_ leave the ground. By several inches.

"Gareth," he choked out, "put me down, you big idiot."

The huge man set him down, but not without giving him several manly-hug-back-thumps that set his teeth jarring. Elijah straightened his jacket and tried to gather the shreds of his dignity. Which Hilda promptly shattered again by laying a big kiss on him. "Oh for Christ sake, woman, let him be," Gareth told her. "I think this deserves a celebratory drink, Elijah. I assume there's someplace to get one in his backwater hell hole?"

Elijah glanced at his watch. "I... all right. A quick one."

* * *

><p>It was early; consequently, the Grill was sparsely populated. Elijah appropriated a corner table, going around in back so he was facing out toward the rest of the room. Matt Donovan waved as he walked through and headed toward the kitchen to start his shift. Gareth went to the bar and came back with three glasses and a bottle of what was likely the best scotch available in Mystic Falls – outside of Elijah's personal collection at home, of course. "To Klaus: May the bastard's soul writhe in hell," he said, raising his glass. Elijah and Hilda did likewise, all of them draining the first glass in a couple of swallows.<p>

"Have you heard from any of the others?" Hilda asked, pouring herself a second glass.

Elijah held his out for a refill. "Sebastian sent his lapdog to confirm."

"Which one?" Gareth asked. "He's got three or four on a string."

"Justin."

Hilda made a face. "No one else?"

"Just the two of you so far."

Gareth leaned forward on his elbows. "You need to think about calling a summit, Elijah. The sooner the better."

"A summit?" Elijah asked, frowning. "What for?"

"There are issues that need to be discussed. Hell, that have needed to be discussed for decades now, except Klaus would hear nothing of it," Hilda pointed out.

"Klaus may have been crazy as a shit-house rat, Elijah, but he wasn't wrong about everything," Gareth added. "There are decisions to be made about how we're going to handle things now that he's not hovering over us all."

The outside door opened, and Katerina strolled in, glancing his way briefly before going over to the bar to greet Matt.

Gareth looked around to see what had caught Elijah's attention, and did a double-take. "Is that...?"

"Mmm. Katerina. The first doppelganger."

Hilda snorted into her glass. "And she's still alive... why?"

Elijah took a swallow of scotch. "A question I ask myself on a continual basis." Katerina had pulled herself up onto a barstool and ordered a drink (soda presumably, given her cover story) so she could flirt with Matt while he performed, or tried to perform, his duties. The young Mr. Donovan was obviously buying absolutely everything she was selling.

"Oh no. Don't tell me she finally got to you, too," Hilda said, following his gaze.

"No. She hasn't." Had she? He didn't think so. And yet, when he had finally had the golden opportunity to be rid of her forever, he had blown his own carefully laid plans. And rather than running her out of town on a rail when she had pulled her stunt that morning, he had reluctantly gone along with it. Lovely. Yet another thing to worry about.

Hilda set her glass aside and leaned forward, mirroring Gareth. "Is it true that you've agreed to set the witches up with their own compound?" she asked, her voice low.

"It is." Elijah wasn't surprised to be questioned on this point; he had known that it wouldn't be a popular move in some circles.

"Was that smart?"

"I like to think so. You don't agree?"

Gareth took the conversational baton from Hilda, making Elijah wonder suddenly just how 'together' they were. It would make sense, he supposed. Present personal circumstances notwithstanding, he had always maintained that vampires were better off with one another than going the human route. "I think it's dangerous to let them convene and learn from one another and not keep some kind of a rein on them," he said.

"You're clinging to the old way of thinking, Gareth. Keep them enslaved, and sooner or later they were going to build up enough power to throw off the yoke, and we can't have that. It's in our best interest to work _with_ them, show them that they are better off allying with us than being at odds."

Hilda shook her head, scowling. "I don't like it. You should have maintained control over them. They can't be dealt with as equals."

"They're too powerful _not_ to be dealt with as equals." He finished his drink and checked his phone. Still no word from Jenna. "I gave them my word. I will honor it."

"And the summit?"

"I'll consider it." Elijah rose. "I have matters I need to attend to, but it's good to see you both. It's been a long time."

"Too long," Gareth agreed, standing and clasping his hand.

"Will the two of you be remaining here in town?"

"We'll be in D.C. for the next little while." Hilda reached into her pocket and gave him a slip of paper with their cell numbers on it, and hugged him again. "Call us when you've set something up."

He didn't bother to correct her 'when' with an 'if.' Bidding them goodbye, he cast a last glance over at the bar, where Matt was leaning on his elbows and telling Katerina some story or other while she looked at him with rapt attention. Elijah added 'slip vervain to Matt Donovan' to his mental to-do list and exited the premises, hoping fervently that Jenna would be at the house when he got there.


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, y'all: I'm taking an unofficial opinion poll. **_**If **_**these two ever manage to get some intimate alone time, and if I can stop blushing and clutching my pearls long enough to write it, do you want to see it from: **

**A) Elijah's point of view; OR**

**B) Jenna's point of view**

**(It will presumably NOT be from Elena's point of view; I think the poor girl's been traumatized enough.)**

**What say ye?**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER SEVEN<strong>

Jenna stole yet another glance at the fancy clock on the Lockwood mantel. The committee meeting had passed the two hour mark and was about halfway through the third hour. Privately (and perhaps uncharitably), Jenna wondered why Carol bothered to put these committees together when she always ended up dictating everything anyway.

"Jenna, will you contact the woman who did the study to see if she'll come and speak at the dedication?"

She shifted her attention away from the clock and back to the mayor. "Yeah, sure. I'll probably see her tomorrow night anyway." _That_ was why Carol formed committees: so she could get other people to do the actual work once she'd dictated it. 'Work,' in this case, being the opening and dedication of the new Mystic Falls Women's Shelter and Resource Center. Jenna had made the mistake, several months ago, of mentioning a study that one of her professors had done regarding the effects of sexual abuse during childhood and adolescence, and that had been all Carol had needed to hear before she was off and running with the idea for a shelter and assistance program.

"Excellent," Carol said, closing the binder in front of her. "I think we've covered everything, then."

Jenna didn't wait for Carol to go through her usual closing remarks. She was tired, she had to pee, and she damn well wanted to go home. "I'll call you next week and let you know if Marjorie is available," she promised as she saw herself to the powder room.

When she had finished what she needed to do and exited the powder room, the other women were gathered in a clump by the front door. Apparently Carol had thought of yet more to discuss. Jenna slipped quietly down the hall in the other direction and scooted into the library, letting herself out the french doors that went onto the verandah. She'd have to walk around the house, but at least she could avoid being assigned yet one more task.

Carol's army of groundskeepers were hard at work. Two workers, a man and a woman, chatted amiably while they pruned back the bank of rosebushes that skirted the entire back of the house. A younger guy, probably 19 or 20, stood on a stepladder, touching up the paint on one of the large trellises. A fourth worker drove a huge lawn tractor, mowing for what would be perhaps the last time before winter.

Jenna stepped off of the verandah and headed across the lawn to go around the house on the far side, which would put her at the driveway without having to cross in front of the main entrance, where there was every possibility she'd be waylaid by the mayor. As she walked, she stuck her hand into her bag, feeling around for her phone. It wasn't in the smaller pocket on the outside of the bag, where she normally put it. She tried reaching into the main compartment, but couldn't get her hand in all the way. Pausing, she swung it around in front of her and opened it, looking as best she could around all of the other stuff jammed in there. When the quick visual inspection yielded no results, she stuffed her hand in one end, then the other, to no avail. Probably wouldn't be able to hear anything on it anyway, as loud as that mower was. Thinking back, she tried to recall the last time she had used it. She didn't remember turning it off when she got to class. In fact, she didn't think she had used it since that morning, when she'd had the near miss on the way to campus.

Figuring she must have left it in the car, she swung the bag back up onto her shoulder. The movement in her peripheral vision when she did so made her look up – just in time to hurl herself sideways, where she crashed into the roses, snagging clothing and skin and hair on the thorns as she fell. The lawn tractor kept going, right over the spot where she had just been standing; had she not gotten out of the way, it would have knocked her down and likely gone over her.

"Hey!" she shouted at the driver, climbing painfully to her feet and gouging yet more skin on the thorns as she did so. The tractor hadn't even slowed. There was no possible way the driver hadn't seen her; she'd been maybe three feet away when she had dived for cover. "Hey, asshole!" Still nothing.

Well and truly pissed, Jenna took off at a jog, catching up to the mower just as it reached the corner of the house. Grabbing the driver's shoulder, she gave it a hard tug, shouting to be heard over the machine's racket. "What the fuck?"

The man jerked when she grabbed him, as though startled. Braking to a stop, he reached down and turned the machine off. "Shoot, you scared me. Something wrong, Miss? Oh! You're bleeding! What happened?" he asked, swing out of the seat and stepping toward her.

"Wrong? You practically just ran me over!" Jenna looked down at her hands and arms, which were covered in long, narrow scratches, several of which were indeed bleeding.

"Huh?" He shook his head blankly.

"Right back there, where there's a crushed spot in the roses that's roughly me-shaped?"

"I... I didn't..." He reached up and took off his ball cap to run his hand over sweaty, thinning hair. "I don't know what happened," he said, looking around him absently, brows drawn together in a look of total confusion. "I'm not even supposed to be mowing this part today." He turned his gaze back on her, clearly troubled. "What am I doing over here?"

Jenna backed up a few steps to put some distance between herself and the man, whom she was realizing had clearly been compelled. "Nevermind. It's okay," she said, scooting around him and hurrying around the corner of the house. She kept an eye behind her in case he came after her, but he made no move to do so. Still, she didn't let her guard down until after she'd dug her keys out and gotten into her car.

A glance in the rearview mirror as she shifted the car into reverse showed some scratches to her face like the ones she sported on her arms and hands. Her hair was a mess, disordered and sprinkled liberally with bits of leaves. She'd take care of it once she got home, she decided. She felt around on the passenger seat for her phone as she pulled out of the driveway and onto the road, but came up empty-handed. Probably on the floor or under the seat from when she had stopped so suddenly.

As she put some distance between herself and the Lockwood mansion, the adrenaline started to wear off, leaving her feeling shaky and nerved up. She couldn't believe she had chased after him. What if he had been compelled to try and kill her, not stopping until he had succeeded? She grabbed her travel mug, half full of long-cold coffee, and took a couple of swigs.

That was a mistake.

Jenna swerved onto the shoulder and slammed the car into park, jumping out of it almost before it had completely stopped moving. Stumbling around the hood of the car, she leaned on the fender and retched repeatedly, dry-heaving long after everything had come up. She wondered blearily if it were actually possible to turn entirely inside-out.

Once everything seemed inclined to stay in place again, she scuffed gravel over the mess and paced a little until she was sure the nausea had passed. So much for her big speech to Elena and Elijah about being able to handle everything, she thought bitterly. A couple small incidents of attempted murder and dismemberment, and she was already a frigging basket case. _Way to hold up under pressure, Jenna._

She got back into the car and pulled her water bottle out of her bag, uncapping it to rinse her mouth out. She paused, though, with the bottle halfway to her lips. Her coffee cup had been in her car the whole time she had been at Carol's. Her _unlocked_ car. What if it wasn't just nerves turning her stomach into an amusement park bouncy house? Though she supposed that wouldn't explain last night, unless… unless someone had gotten to the pizza too! It had been delivered, after all, allowing God only knew how many people access to it. Jenna wracked her brain, trying to think who else had eaten the pepperoni pizza. Andie and Elena had both eaten the veggie; Jeremy had eaten at the hospital. She didn't think Elijah had eaten any at all, but even if he had she doubted it would have affected him. The rest of it was presumably in the refrigerator.

_Unless the kids had taken some to school for lunch!_ "Shit! shit shit_ shit_," she started muttering under her breath, leaning over to dig frantically through the papers and food wrappers and empty fast food bags littering the floor on the passenger side, searching for her phone. No luck, not even after checking underneath the seat. "Shit!"

Deciding that the lukewarm water was probably okay by virtue of having been with her the whole time, Jenna took a couple of mouthfuls and swished them around, spitting them out her still open door before slamming it shut and peeling away from the shoulder, sending gravel flying. She could only pray that no one else had eaten any of the pizza.

* * *

><p>Jenna almost cried with relief when she tore down the street and saw both Elena and Jeremy's cars in the driveway. Elijah's car was there, too, looking like a sleek black panther in a predatory crouch, ready to pounce on the kids' SUV and Jeep wildebeests. She barely had time to open the door before all three of them piled out of the house, Elena and Jeremy jogging over to her, Elijah following at a more dignified pace.<p>

"Aunt Jenna!" Elena swept her up in a hug. "Where have you been? What happened?" She turned Jenna's arms over, looking at the scratches.

"Carol's. Committee meeting. The pizza! You didn't eat it, did you?"

"Uh, yeah…" Jeremy said. "Sorry. I didn't think you'd mind."

Jenna let go of Elena and rushed to Jeremy. "The pepperoni?"

"Yeah… Aunt Jenna, are you okay?" Jeremy shot a concerned look over at Elijah.

"I think it was poisoned," she said. "How do you feel? Are you sick?" She held a hand up to Jeremy's forehead. "We should go to the hospital!"

"I'm fine," he said, removing her hand from his forehead. "That was like, three hours ago. _I'm fine_," he repeated.

"Wait, why do you think it was poisoned?" Elena asked, frowning. "Did something else happen? We've been trying to call you all afternoon."

Jenna took a deep breath, fighting down the latest bout of panic. "I lost my phone. I can't find it."

"Jeremy, Elena, could I have a few moments with your aunt?" Elijah asked, his eyes never leaving hers.

"I… yeah, sure," Elena agreed, reluctantly. "Come on, Jer."

Elijah held an arm out to Jenna, wrapping it around her waist as she fell into step with him and went into the house. He moved her toward the living room; she got to about the archway before turning and wrapping her arms around his waist, burying her face against his chest. He put his arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head, stroking her back.

"I'm sorry," she said, fighting back tears, her voice muffled against him. "I supposed to be handling this."

"Shh." He kept up a steady, calming rhythm, stroking her back and her hair. Jenna let herself cling to him, wallowing in the feeling of being taken care of. The feeling had been in damn short supply lately. May as well enjoy it for a minute or two, at least until she was sure she wasn't going to further humiliate herself by breaking down and bawling.

When she felt marginally better, she pulled back a little. Elijah kissed her forehead and led her over to the chair, seating himself on the ottoman and facing her when she sat. "Tell me what happened."

Jenna blew out a breath. "Whole list, or just the top ten?" Elijah quirked a brow at her. "Not literally. But it's been a long day." She told him about the near miss with the Volkswagen and her paranoia when she had seen the girl getting out of the car, then moved on to the incident at Carol's, culminating with her theory on the coffee and the pizza being poisoned somehow. He waited until she was finished before saying anything.

"First of all, it isn't paranoia if someone really is out to get you. The first incident sounds innocent enough, though. The second, however…" Elijah got up to pace. "Who else was at the mansion? Anyone you didn't know?"

She shook her head. "No, not inside. There were people outside working on the grounds. Three people besides the one who tried to… heh, to mow me down."

"Can you describe them? The other three?"

"Not really. There was a man and a woman pruning rose bushes, and a kid, maybe twenty years old, painting the trellis. Nothing about them really stuck out to me."

"I ask because this doesn't sound like a pre-meditated compulsion. Too random, too nonspecific. It strikes me more as an act of opportunity, which would seem to indicate one of the other three as the source of the compulsion."

"Yeah, because that makes it much less scary and creepy. Not!"

"You said he didn't pursue you beyond the initial pass?" Jenna shook her head. "And you're sure it was intentional, not just a loss of focus on his part?"

"I wasn't exactly hidden, Elijah. I was standing right there in plain sight. And he was looking directly at me. It was like there was no one home upstairs, if you know what I mean."

"Okay." He stopped pacing and resumed his seat on the ottoman. "Onto the next. Jeremy seems to be fine after eating the pizza, so I don't believe there was anything wrong with that. Where is your coffee cup? Still in the car?"

Jenna nodded. "Yeah. Do you think I should take it somewhere, have it tested?"

"That depends. Do you want the sheriff asking importune questions?"

Jenna scrunched her nose up. "I'm guessing 'no' is the appropriate answer here?"

He smiled, rueful. "You guess correctly. I'll go retrieve it."

While he went out to the car, Jenna went to the bathroom to wash her hands and arms. The scratches had stopped bleeding, leaving tracks of dried blood in a maze-like pattern on her skin. The shallow wounds stung as she patted her skin dry. She grabbed a washcloth from the cupboard and did the best she could with the scratches on her face, then started pulling leaves and bits of twig out of her hair.

Elijah appeared in the mirror behind her, travel mug in hand. He had removed the top and was sniffing at it. "I don't smell anything off," he said, then took a swallow.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

He swished it around in his mouth before swallowing. "I don't taste anything either. Other than grotesquely over-light coffee." He made a face.

"Would you be able to tell?"

"Most likely." He leaned against the door frame. "I don't suppose you have any friends out of town that you could go visit?"

"With my abstract due next week?"

"Right," he sighed.

"I'm going to make some coffee," she decided, edging past him and heading toward the kitchen.

Elijah followed. "There are two more Originals in town. Or were, earlier," he amended, when she turned to give him a wide-eyed stare.

"Way to bury the lead."

"They're friends, after a fashion."

"'After a fashion?' What does that mean, exactly?" she asked, measuring out coffee grounds. "I don't speak 'arcane vampire.'"

He smiled, a little. "Let's just say, if I were to count any of the others as allies, it would be the two of them."

"Not in love with the 'if' word in this context."

"They would challenge me if they felt that the situation warranted it, but they're not going to play games like compelling truck drivers or gardeners. That's more Sebastian's style. I'm guessing he sent others besides Justin here. If Hilda or Gareth had an issue with me, they would confront me directly with it."

Jenna paused with the coffeepot halfway to the sink. "Hilda? Like as in a woman?"

That got a small laugh out of him. "Yes…"

She filled the pot and poured water into the coffee maker, pressing the 'on' button. "I just assumed that all of the Originals were men."

"Hilda was the only woman amongst us."

"Weren't you all warriors?"

Elijah nodded. "We were, Hilda included."

"Wow. Okay. I… didn't think women did that sort of thing. You know, back then."

"Most didn't. It was of course frowned upon. Hilda was allowed, however." Elijah gave a soft laugh. "Probably because no one wanted to be the one to tell her she couldn't."

Jenna smirked. "She kicked your ass, didn't she?"

"Repeatedly," he affirmed, leaning against the counter and pulling her back against him.

"I almost want to meet her," Jenna said, putting her arms over his, across her stomach. "Almost. Is she scary?"

"Mm, terrifying," he said, his lips nuzzling her behind the ear.

"Stop that," she giggled.

"Stop what?" He pulled her earlobe between his teeth, flicking it with his tongue.

"Ooh… that," she answered, even as she tilted her head to the side to give him better access.

Elijah seized the opening and trailed a string of kisses down her neck, pulling the collar of her shirt aside with his teeth so his lips could continue their slow, torturous progress, stopping just short of her bra strap. He traveled back along the same path, pulling her skin into his mouth every few kisses or so, making her catch her breath. "You mean _this_?" he breathed into her ear.

"Yeah," she gasped.

He freed one arm out from under hers and slid his hand slowly up her body, caressing her breast on its way to cupping her face and turning it toward him so that he could claim her lips. His other hand followed the trail the first had blazed, resting underneath her breast, his thumb reaching up to flick across her nipple. Jenna groaned into his mouth and tried to turn around, but he held her fast against him, not allowing it.

_Fine, two can play this game._ Reaching one arm up over her shoulder, she wrapped it around his neck. She quickly realized she'd made a tactical error; Elijah took the opportunity afforded him by the position and slipped his hand underneath her shirt and over the lace of her bra. Searching for any advantage, she pressed her backside up against him, rubbing as she moved side to side. She smiled a little against his lips as his breath caught and his arm tightened around her.

The next second, she was somehow perched on the counter, face to face with him, with his hand tangled in her hair and pulling her head back to expose her throat to him. _This should probably worry me_, she thought briefly, then stopped thinking at all as his hand on the small of her back pulled her hips forward so there was nothing between them but a little cotton and denim. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist and moved against him as he nibbled and sucked and licked at her neck.

Fevered, she yanked his head back by the hair and attacked his lips with her own, biting his bottom lip before darting her tongue into his mouth. His hips moved, bucking against her and tearing a ragged moan from her throat as the world narrowed down to her body and his, and what the two were doing to one another. She ground herself against him again, pulling a muffled oath from him this time. She was close… oh God, she was _so close_…

"Uh, Elena…"

"Wha – oh my God, sorry. So sorry! I… Jeez, we…"

"Let's just go."

Stefan and Elena's voices, along with their retreating footsteps, somehow seeped into Jenna's lust-drenched consciousness, and she shoved Elijah away from her, clapping a hand over her mouth in horror and quickly-dawning mortification. Elijah shook himself a couple of times, as though he too had lost all sense of anything other than what they'd just been doing, or about to do, or wanting to do…

"Well," he said, after a moment, his voice low and husky. "That was awkward."

A slightly hysterical giggle escaped her. Jenna darted her eyes down the hallway. "There's always the half-bath…"

"Jenna," he said, eyes dark and dangerous, "when I have you for the first time, it's not going to be in your bathroom." He blew out a breath and turned away from her, making a subtle clothing adjustment as he did so. "Nor on your kitchen counter. All evidence to the contrary," he added, ruefully.

"Right. Yeah. Totally." She dropped her head into her hands. "Oh God, and here I told Elena you wouldn't be walking around naked, eating ice cream."

A hint of amusement crept into his voice. "As I'm neither naked nor eating ice cream, you've so far kept your word, as it were. Though it does beg the question," he said, as she peeked out from behind her hands, "as to just how many times she's caught you _in flagrante delicto, _now."

"Not just her," she groaned. " Jeremy too. And Stefan, this time." She heaved a huge sigh. "It's official. I am the worst parent – and the skankiest aunt – ever."

"I suppose it could be worse," he said, reaching into the cupboard for two coffee mugs.

"Do tell."

"You could have walked in on her and Stefan doing that instead."

"Good point." He handed her one of the mugs after putting a liberal dollop of cream in it. "Though then I could be all righteously indignant, instead of mortifyingly embarrassed." She inhaled the coffee aroma as she went to take a sip – and quickly set the mug away from her, swallowing rapidly. "Too soon!" She hopped off the counter, away from the coffee, breathing shallowly until the sudden nausea passed. "I guess my stomach isn't ready to forgive and forget the earlier incident just yet. _Goddamn it._ I _like_ coffee!"

"About Stefan," Elijah began, covering the concerned look he had been giving her with a sip of his own black coffee, "I called him earlier when I was outside and asked him to stay here for the night. I don't like the idea of you three being here without protection. I'll make sure the security system gets installed tomorrow."

"So… instead of staying here yourself and… guarding my body… you asked Stefan to come over? Thereby virtually guaranteeing that my niece will be doing what I wanted to be doing?"

"Essentially… yes." Setting his mug down, he walked over and propped a finger under her chin. "When I have you for the first time, Jenna, it will _also_ not be with your niece or nephew in the next room." He lowered his face to hers, then gave her a peck of a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Because I promise, you will _not_ be quiet."

"I… see no problem with this plan," she decided, blinking as he backed away and picked up his coffee again.

"About your phone…"

"I have class first thing, but if I can't find it after I tear the car apart then I'll go and replace it when I leave campus."

"Good. I don't like the idea of you not being able to call." He drained his mug and took it to the sink, dumping the one she had abandoned and rinsing both before putting them in the dishwasher. "I should go. What time shall I pick you up for the meet-and-greet tomorrow?"

"Oh. Um, six-thirtyish? Shit, I need to figure out what I'm going to wear."

"Tomorrow, then." He gave her a quick kiss, stepping nimbly out of the way when she would have pulled him in for a longer one. "Behave. There are children present."

She watched him leave, then moseyed into the dining room or, as she was beginning to think of it, the war zone. Heaving a sigh of frustration, she sat down to do some work.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry this is so late in coming. I had it almost finished, but then Thursday's episode happened and it made it a little difficult for me to write. I'm still not sure this chapter is up to snuff, but here goes nuthin'.**

**On the security system thing: I worked for a security company until recently. Yes, people actually DO do that. You'd be amazed. o_0**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER EIGHT<strong>

Having made the necessary introductions, Elijah left Caroline and Sofia at the table to talk and joined Marcus at the bar, where the younger vampire had already ordered them a round of bourbon. "To not having to listen to 'girl talk,'" he said, raising his shot glass in salute.

Elijah did the same. "Cheers." He downed the shot and motioned the bartender for a refill. "Did you have any luck with that other project?"

"Mm. I forwarded what I found for photos; they should be available to download on your phone." Marcus pulled a basket of pretzels closer to them, snagging one. "That's a fairly dated list, though. There's no telling who else Sebastian has recruited since then."

"It's a start." Elijah downloaded the photos of Justin and Sebastian's other known cohorts into his phone's photo gallery. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he looked over his shoulder to see Damon headed toward them. "Thank you for coming. Damon, Marcus," he said, by way of introduction.

Damon pulled himself up onto the barstool next to Elijah, signaling the bartender. "So, what's today's big emergency?"

Elijah forwarded the photos on to Damon. "I have a task for the two of you. Damon, do you still have a stock of the vervain syringes?"

"A few." He signaled to the bartender and ordered a whiskey, then looked at the photos on his phone. "Vamps, I assume?"

"Mm. If any of these, or for that matter any other, vampires appear in town, I'd like to have a conversation with them."

"Speaking of vampires in town… what are we doing about our little schoolgirl situation?"

So Stefan had filled him in. "For the time being, nothing," he sighed. "Better to know where she is than wonder what she's up to."

"Or, we could just kill the bitch."

_No, evidently he couldn't._ "She could still be useful."

"Riiiiight." Damon downed his drink when the bartender set it in front of him and held the glass out for another. "So, outside vampires. I'm guessing this would be an in-the-dungeon with pointy stakes kind of conversation and not a 'can I get you something to drink?' conversation?"

"Your powers of deduction are astonishing, Damon."

"You have a dungeon?" Marcus asked, looking around Elijah at Damon.

"Doesn't everyone?" Damon grabbed a couple of pretzels out of the bowl.

Elijah checked his watch and left enough cash on the bar to cover their drinks, plus a few more rounds. "Play nicely, gentlemen."

Damon gave him the eyebrow treatment. "Where are _you_ going?"

Elijah clapped him on the shoulder as he got up. "_I _have a date."

* * *

><p>The door to the Gilbert house opened just as Elijah reached for the knob, and Elena crashed into him, letting out a startled, "ooph!" as they collided.<p>

"Whoa," he said, grasping her arms to steady her. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, sorry. Yeah! Bonnie. Jeremy called. She's awake! She talked to him and everything!"

"That's excellent news. Please give her my regards."

"I will." Elena skipped down the steps and to her car.

Elijah looked up as Jenna started down the stairs. Her normal attire of jeans, shirt and sneakers had undergone a radical upgrade. In its place she wore a wine red cocktail dress. The velvet bodice was overlaid with a pattern etched in silver, starting at a high collar that left her shoulders, arms and most of her back bare. It hugged her body like a second skin all the way down her hips; just below there, a high side-slit allowed the skirt to drape gracefully to about mid-calf. She wore a pair of matching silver and red shoes and carried a small, silver clutch purse. She, or perhaps Elena, had pulled her hair up into a sleek, elegant style, pinned in place by an ornate silver clasp.

Whatever he had been thinking fled as his long-deprived body took over his thought processes. He wanted to Do Things to her. He wanted to run his hands over her bared back, inside that oh-so-convenient side slit, down the silvered front of the dress that appeared to have nothing underneath it but Jenna. He wanted to pull her hair loose and spread it out with his fingers – preferably across his pillow. He wanted to sink his teeth into that tantalizing peek of thigh right there. Most of all, he wanted her writhing underneath him –

"Should… I take this whole speechlessness thing as a compliment?" she asked him, giving him a little sideways look as she paused at the base of the stairs?

He swallowed. Twice. "You look absolutely stunning."

Jenna smiled the self-satisfied smile of woman who looked good and knew it. "You're not looking so bad yourself." She reached into the hall closet for a coat. "I am so gonna have the hottest date there."

Elijah took the coat from her and held it up for her to slip into. "Are you absolutely certain we must attend this gathering?" he asked suggestively. "There are far more pleasant ways to spend the evening…"

"Easy, tiger. Yes, we need to attend." She slapped a hand to his chest when he leaned in to kiss her. "Uh-uh. If we start that, we are never getting out of this house, and I did _not_ shimmy into these pantyhose just to slither right back out of them. Besides, I need to make nice with these people. God knows I'm going to need all the help I can get."

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her neck instead, making her catch her breath. "How long, precisely, do you expect this 'making nice' to take?"

She turned him bodily toward the door. "Out."

Elijah let her turn him, noticing as she did the new keypad next to the front door. "Excellent. They did get the security system installed."

"Oh, yeah. Crap. I suppose I should set it, huh?" Jenna stepped up to it and held her finger poised hesitantly over the buttons.

"That's the general idea, yes. I don't think it bites."

"Hrmph. Spoken like someone who has never witnessed my epically bad luck with anything electronic."

He stepped up to her side. "Here, what's the code?"

"It's right there on the flappy drop-down door thingy."

Elijah closed his eyes and dug thumb and forefinger into them. "Jenna."

"Hmm?"

"Having the code right there for anyone to look at rather defeats the purpose."

"Well…" She flailed her arms. "I won't remember it!"

"It's a four-digit number."

Jenna crossed her arms in front of her. "Could you just set the damn thing so we can go already?"

Elijah entered the code – so handily provided – and pushed the 'away' button. The keypad emitted a steady, monotone sound.

"Oh God, you set it off!" Jenna tried to reach around him.

"That's just the tone that signals the unit is set and you're clear to exit. That's not the alarm."

"It's not?"

Elijah opened the door and motioned her out, closing it behind him. The tone stopped. "See, it silences once you exit. Did they not show you how to use the system when they installed it?"

She glanced up at him guiltily. "They did, but I made Elena go through it with them. I'm sorry! It freaks me out."

Exasperation at war with charm and attraction, he wisely decided to quit the field of that particular battle. Walking her to the car, he held the door open for her. "You know, chivalry is really sexy," she told him, once he'd opened the driver's door and gotten in.

"Duly noted." Elijah pulled out onto the street, resisting (rather heroically, he thought) the urge to slide his hand off of the gearshift and inside the slit of her dress, which happened to be on the side facing him. "Were you able to get a new phone?" he asked, changing the subject from anything that had the word s-e-x in it.

"Oh! I found mine. Well, Suzanne found mine. We had lunch together yesterday, and she found it on the floor after I left. It must have fallen out of my bag. God, I love the new car smell," she added, inhaling deeply.

"There's one less worry, then." He slipped his own phone out of his breast pocket to check for messages. Nothing pressing. "Tell me who we're meeting tonight. Other than the overly curious professor."

Jenna turned a little toward him as much as the seatbelt would allow, inadvertently hiking her dress a little higher. Elijah started calculating the pros and cons of waiting until their post-abstract weekend away versus taking her home with him tonight and ravishing her. This level of distraction was verging on ridiculous. "Let's see…" Jenna started ticking off names on her fingers. "There's Professor Harris, Professor Scarsdale, and Professor Lee, who are all on the panel. I'm sure several other professors from the department will be there, as well as other grad students. Professor Mitchell, obviously. And Margaret Shumly, who I need to corner.

"For…?"

"Carol wants me to ask – read: strong-arm – her into speaking at the dedication for the new women's shelter at the end of the month. I made the mistake of telling Carol about a study she did on sexual abuse, which is what started Carol steamrolling on the idea of a shelter. You'd think I'd learn not to give that woman ideas."

"Is there a great demand for such a shelter in Mystic Falls?"

"Probably more than you'd think. People always assume these problems are more prevalent in big cities, but that's not really the case. There's just more anonymity there than in a small town. Hopefully one thing the shelter will do is give the women who need it a safe environment to recover in."

"You know," Elijah said reflectively, "there was a time when a woman had a greater expectation of being raped than of living to see her fortieth birthday."

"That's awful!"

"It was. Yet it wasn't looked upon as it is now. A woman was not considered traumatized, but shamed. As was her father or husband." Elijah glanced over and saw the storm clouds gathering in Jenna's eyes. "I'm not saying I believe that," he assured her hastily. "But that was the common perception."

She didn't look appeased. "Right. Because a woman was nothing but a piece of property."

"For all intents and purposes… yes." Elijah took her hand and raised it to his lips to press a kiss into it. "I know it may not always seem apparent from watching the news, but society truly has come a very long way in that regard."

"Not far enough." Jenna rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand before letting go. "What really surprised me in listening to Prof. Shumly's lecture was how girls who are molested at a young age become almost hyper-sexual. In a way it's counterintuitive; you'd think they'd want to avoid anything to do with sex rather than seeking it out. It's like their whole… sense of self gets wrapped into their sexuality, and that's their primary modality for dealing with the opposite sex." Jenna shrugged. "It's just sad."

"Mm. Is this the entrance I want?" he asked, gesturing toward the upcoming road onto campus.

"Next one. All the way down, and take a right. That will put us at the Arts center. Parking will be at a premium, but Professor Mitchell handed out some temp passes to the faculty lot next to the building."

Elijah parked where indicated and, seeing no one in the immediate vicinity, sped over to open Jenna's door for her, eliciting the usual little squeak from her. "What if someone saw you?" she asked, glancing around.

"Ah, but that's just the point – they couldn't see me." He held his arm out to her, tucking her fingers into the crook of his arm as he led her into the building. "Shall we?"

* * *

><p>After an hour of desperate socializing (on the part of the graduate students) and pretentious intellectualism (on the part of the faculty), Jenna's questionable advisor had yet to put in an appearance, and Elijah was beginning to fear that this entire endeavor would prove to be a waste of time. He had just begun formulating a plan that involved an early departure, a bottle of fine wine, and a number of throw pillows in front of his fireplace when Jenna grabbed his arm and nodded in the direction of the door. "That's him."<p>

The man in question stood in the doorway next to a petite redhead. From that vantage point, he stood surveying the room. He was tall, and what Elijah supposed some would say was physically imposing. Jenna motioned, catching the redhead's attention, and she nudged the Professor. The two headed their way.

"They were just somewhere having sex," Jenna told him, under her breath.

"What?"

"The back of his shirt collar is out over his jacket, his pants have wrinkles from lying on the floor, her hair is sweat-dampened at the temples and crushed flat in the back... they were totally doing it."

Elijah looked down at her, eyebrow raised. "You can tell all that at one glance, from a distance?"

Jenna shrugged. "It's a gift. Suzanne!" she said, as the two approached. "Nice dress! You look great."

"You too! Wow."

"Professor Mitchell, this is my friend, Elijah Smith," Jenna said, turning toward the man.

"Pleasure." Elijah extended his hand to him. The Professor hesitated for a fraction of a second, then took it, squeezing perhaps harder than necessary.

"Nice to meet you," Mitchell returned, though the stare he was giving Elijah suggested otherwise.

Jenna gestured to the redhead. "And this is Suzanne Turner. She's a fellow graduate student."

"Hi." She didn't offer him a hand. In fact, she looked distinctly uncomfortable. Elijah didn't recognize either of them, and would have put money on neither being a vampire. Still, something felt off.

"So, I thought you'd be here earlier," Jenna said to Suzanne.

"Oh, yeah, worked a little later than I planned at the library," she answered, studiously avoiding looking at the professor.

Jenna gave her a knowing "Mm-hmm."

"Jenna tells me you took interest in some of her extracurricular research," Elijah said to Mitchell.

"An intriguing if outlandish subject," Mitchell answered shortly. "I hope you get a chance to mingle, Jenna. Excuse me, I need to speak to Professor Lee." He headed toward a clump of fellow academics, leaving Suzanne standing awkwardly with them.

"I should go... talk to some on the panel, I guess," the redhead said, by way of excusing herself. She headed off in a direction away from Mitchell.

"Okay, so... that was weird," Jenna said, leaning into his side. "Did you get anything, pick up any vibes?"

"I'm not a psychic, you know," he told her, amused.

"No, but... hey, are there psychics?" she asked suddenly. He just continued smiling at her. "Shit. What else is real? Big Foot? The Loch Ness Monster? The Easter Bunny?"

"No; yes; and you would not believe how much he sheds."

Jenna bumped her shoulder into him. "Very funny. Seriously, though."

Elijah glanced around the room. "Have you talked to everyone you needed to?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go, then. We can discuss it on the way."

Jenna stopped to say goodbye to a couple of her friends as they made their way through the gathering, and it took probably another half hour for them to get out of there. During that time Elijah noted Mitchell's gaze resting on him, though he was quick to glance away when Elijah looked back. He'd lost track of the girl in the crowd somewhere.

"I hope I didn't spaz out too much on the panel," Jenna said, once they'd gotten outside. "Professor Lee may not be any taller than my navel, but she is freaking scary. What is it with tiny Asian women being so intimidating?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," he told her, pulling the keys out of his pocket as they walked. "I think you'll find your abstract goes over splendidly."

Jenna glanced up at him, suddenly suspicious. "You didn't..."

"Didn't what?" he asked, tone perfectly innocent.

She stopped walking. "You... Oh my God, you did! You compelled them to accept my abstract!"

"I... may have suggested that they consider it favorably." Elijah stopped as well, waiting for her.

She stood with her arms crossed for a moment, eyeballing him. "Okay, I'm trying to be mad at you, but I'm really not feeling it. Does that make me a horrible person?"

Elijah leaned in toward her, lowering his voice. "You're asking the Ancient Evil Vampire?"

Jenna sighed dramatically. "Well that's it. It's happened. I've gone to the dark side." She started walking again; he fell into step beside her.

"It's all right. We have cookies."

"Mmm... cookies!"

He chuckled, opening her door for her as they reached the car, and adding chocolates to the wine on his mental list.

"So, what did you think?" she asked, as he got into the car.

"I don't believe he's a vampire; you were correct there. There was _something_, though."

"Compulsion?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. But I'm fairly certain he knew who and/or what I am."

"Why?"

"The way he looked at me. His rapid and surly exit from the conversation."

"That's actually kinda normal for him. He's got a reputation for being moody as hell."

"Still... I believe there's something up with your friend as well."

Jenna giggled. "Uh, yeah, I think that would be Professor Mitchell."

"Yes, well, that may have accounted for some of her nerves, but... let's just say I'm not willing to discount the possibility that whatever he knows, she knows."

"Oh, I think there was definitely a lot of 'knowing' going on between them."

"An intriguing segue," he said, putting the key in the ignition and turning it.

He wasn't sure he could even say, later, what it was that warned him. A sound that was off, a smell... he didn't stop to give it conscious thought, just lurched across the seat and pushed the passenger door clean off of the car. Grabbing Jenna up on the pass, he hauled her with him out of the car. He had time to speed just a few short strides away before the explosion came.


	9. Chapter 9

**The vote was fairly evenly split, so consider this part one. Meanwhile, I'll be over in the corner, blushing furiously and clutching my pearls, once again feeling like a 13 year-old hiding under blankets with a flashlight to write dirty stories I didn't want my mom to find.**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER NINE<strong>

When Jenna came to, her senses were under assault. Sirens, car alarms, shouted orders, and the roar of fire all battered at her ears. The flickering of flame and the strobe effect of red and blue dancing lights speared into her eyes as she opened them, though she seemed to be some distance away. The acrid smell of smoke, with an under-note of gasoline, filled her nose and made her cough as she took a deep breath to try and clear it. Her body sent up plaintive cries from a scrape here, a bruise there; the ghosts of deeper injuries made their presence known, misty and fading, but somehow no less real for their snuffed out existence.

On her tongue, she tasted blood.

Struggling to an upright position, she realized she was sitting in grass, a little away from the parking lot. Three fire trucks had converged on the scene, and several police cars were circled around the outside of them, keeping onlookers away from an area now teeming with crew that struggled to bring down the flames that danced where Elijah's car had been.

_Elijah!_

Jenna looked around sharply, hissing in a breath when the sudden movement sent a jolt of pain shooting up the side of her neck to her temple. There, behind her. Elijah was on his hands and knees, blood staining the side of his face that she could see. It was hard to tell in that lighting, but the back of his clothes looked burnt to the point of disintegration. Far more alarming, though, was the large, jagged piece of metal protruding from his back.

"Elijah! Oh my God!" Jenna half crawled, half scrambled over to him, wincing as scraped knees slid across the grass.

He turned his head toward her. "You're awake. Good." His voice sounded oddly breathless. A thin string of blood dripped out of his mouth as he spoke.

Jenna started to put a hand on his back, then pulled it back, afraid to hurt him worse. "Okay. This is bad. Elijah, there's a big piece of metal sticking out of your back."

"Yes, Jenna, I'm aware of that," he said, which started him on a long, racking cough that ended with him turning his head away from her and spitting a torrent of blood onto the ground. "You need to pull it out," he wheezed, when he could speak again.

"I... oh God... wait… just don't move. I'm gonna get someone."

Elijah's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist before she could go. "No!" The one word sent him into another long spasm of coughing. "They can't see this," he finished weakly.

Jenna gulped in a breath. "Elijah, I don't think I can do this. I... I don't want to hurt you," she finished inanely.

"_Jenna_. Just. Pull. It. Out."

Jenna climbed to her feet, taking another deep breath as she gauged just how big the shrapnel was. Shaking her hands in front of her, she took yet another deep breath, then another – then realized when the sudden dizziness hit that she was going to hyperventilate if she didn't stop. "Oh God, okay. I'm gonna do it now." She found a grip on either side of the piece, feeling for spots that weren't too sharp and, grasping it tightly, she pulled upward.

It barely budged.

Elijah coughed and spat some more blood. Jenna let go and tried not to go into full-blown panic. "_Fuck_! It's too deep. It won't slide out!"

"It's caught on a rib," he whispered. "Push your foot against my back. Leverage."

"Won't that _break_ your rib?"

"Likely," he agreed.

Jenna took a step back. _I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this This was _not_ in my contract!_. But, she realized, looking around, she had to. He was right; they couldn't risk someone else discovering his resilience. She took a few seconds to psych herself up some more, then re-gripped the metal, this time putting her foot against his back too. She gave it a hard jerk and heard a horrific, muffled snapping noise.

Elijah grunted in pain and jerked like someone had run a livewire through him, coughing more blood onto the ground. Jenna tried to breathe around sudden nausea as that terrible sound played over and over in her head. Her hands and arms tingled from being jarred when the metal had hit bone. "I'm sorry," she whimpered, fighting down hysteria.

"S'kay," Elijah slurred. "…keepgoing..."

Jenna blinked back tears and sniffed. It was ridiculous, _her _crying while _he _was the one with the big piece of metal making mincemeat of his insides. She swallowed and grabbed it once more, giving it a tug. This time it slid out a few inches. She took a breath, then tugged again. Another couple of inches slid out. The third time, she kept the pressure steady, feeling his body starting to loosen its hold on the shrapnel. It slid slowly out of him, freeing itself the last little bit with a quick pop that had her tumbling backward onto her ass.

As the metal came free of his body, Elijah collapsed onto his stomach, coughing and retching more blood. Jenna tossed the object away from her and scrambled over to him; when he stilled, she helped him turn over and placed his head in her lap. Tearing off a piece of her ruined coat, she wiped his face, cleaning off the worst of the blood. "What the hell happened?" she asked at last.

"Car bomb."

"Okay… um," Jenna processed that for a moment. "Where were we when it exploded?"

"A few steps away. That's as far as I got before it went off."

"Wait. We were in it?"

Elijah sighed and sat up. As he did so, his jacket more or less disintegrated off of him. The shirt underneath didn't look too far away from following suit. "Initially."

"How did we get out?"

"I..." Elijah shook his head. "There was something off, something that warned me. I pushed your door out and pulled you with me out of the car."

"Holy shit." Jenna looked down at herself. "I guess I got lucky with just a few scrapes."

Elijah got to his feet, holding a hand down to her to help her stand. "I tried to take the brunt of it. You _were_ injured, though. Broken ribs, probably internal bleeding. I fed you my blood to heal the worst of it."

Jenna stared up at him in the dim light. "You mean you got us all the way over here with that thing through you, AND stopped to heal _me_?"

"I thought it would be prudent not to be too close when the rescue crews arrived. And you needed healing."

Belatedly taking his hand, Jenna dusted her backside off as she stood, though considering the state of her dress, she didn't know why she bothered. "I'm not a vampire or anything now, am I?"

"No. Not unless you die this evening, while my blood is still in your system."

"You know, normally I wouldn't walk around like I was an extra in a _Final Destination_ movie, thinking I'm about to kick the bucket, but right now..." Jenna wrapped her arms around his waist, fighting off the impending freak-out.

Elijah pulled her to him, resting his chin on her head as he looked over toward the parking lot, where the flames were dying under the onslaught of the fire hoses. He let out an irritated sigh. "Three."

"Three what?"

"Cars. In the past month."

Jenna watched the firemen. "Maybe you should think about a Hummer," she said, giggling until she recognized the edge of hysteria in it.

"We should leave, before someone discovers us and starts asking questions. Did your phone survive?"

Jenna fished into the pocket of her coat and pulled her phone out. "I think so. Won't you have to talk to the police, though?"

"Later. Right now I want to get you home. I can deal with this – and whoever is responsible for it – tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Jenna's mini Cooper gamely climbed the long driveway up to Elijah's Aerie, as she privately called the hilltop house that stood sentry high up over the lake. She had spent the better part of a week in that house, held there by two of Elijah's vampire cohorts "for her own protection." She sincerely hoped she wasn't walking into a similar situation this time, in light of the evening's events.<p>

That's if she talked herself into getting out of the car at all. She had surreptitiously asked Elena to bring her an overnight bag along with her car, "just in case." It had seemed like a terribly good idea at the time; nothing like surviving (yet another) murder attempt to make someone want to celebrate being alive in the most primal way possible.

Now that they were here, though, she was suddenly shy. Should she just get out of the car with him, on the assumption that she was welcome? Make a tacit suggestion? Hint for an invitation? Considering he was pretty much the definition of 'old-fashioned,' she somehow doubted _fuck me – here, now, hard!_ was the way to go about it.

"Are you coming in?" he asked, thereby rendering the problem moot.

Jenna sent up a silent prayer of thanks. "Yeah, sure. I had Elena throw a change of clothes in the car for me," she told him, reaching into the miniscule back seat for the bag. She thought she saw a little smirk before Elijah turned and got out of the car. _Okay, buddy. We'll see who's smirking later._

The house was exactly as she remembered it, and was immaculate. She wondered idly if he had someone come in to clean, which seemed unlikely, or whether pathological neatness was a vampire thing; Damon was always fussing at something.

Elijah flipped the door down on a keypad identical to the one he had had installed in her house and disarmed the system, dropping his keys into a little dish on the occasional table by the door. "I'm going to clean up," he told her, heading toward the bedroom.

Jenna debated heading to the guest bath down the hall and doing the same; she was sure as hell not in any state to even sit on the furniture, let alone have naked sexytime. While she was mulling it over, she heard Elijah's shower turn on. She remembered that shower: hugely oversized, with amazing water pressure, a big overhead rain fixture, plus multiple jets set at various heights. She had spent so much time in there her first morning that Sofia had come in to make sure she hadn't tried to shimmy out the bathroom window. Not that she hadn't considered it, but the sheer drop down the rock face was enough of a deterrent, even if the shower hadn't been so incredible.

_What the hell. No guts, no glory._

Heading into the master bedroom, Jenna slipped out of her ruined dress and pulled the hairpins out, freeing what hair hadn't already escaped. She winced as her fingers fetched on a tangle of dried blood in her hair. A shower was definitely in order. She took a deep breath to quiet the butterflies in her stomach and walked into the bathroom.

The glass around the shower was frosted with steam from the hot water, offering only an indistinct outline of Elijah's body. She wondered suddenly if she should say anything before she stepped into it with him. Jenna somehow doubted that sneaking up on a vampire was a very good idea. Then again, she hadn't exactly tiptoed into the room or been super quiet undressing; chances were he had heard her anyway. _Here goes nothing._

Jenna opened the glass door and waited a moment so she was sure Elijah knew she was there and, squaring her shoulders, stepped into the glass enclosure.

And stared.

Elijah stood with his back to her, but had turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. Broad shoulders and muscled back tapered to a narrow waist, under which was a truly fine specimen of a male ass. The rivulets of water running down his body only served to highlight his form. She'd known from her fingers' limited explorations that he would be fit and trim, but she hadn't imagined he was hiding _all that_ under his expensive, tailored suits. "I," she began, and cleared her throat when he voice came out all husky, "I thought we could save some water."

Elijah chuckled, low in his throat. "Did you, now?"

Jenna closed her eyes and backed under one of the jets of water, wetting her hair and running her fingers through it as best she could to rinse the blood and dirt out of it. She sensed, rather than heard Elijah move, and then he was running his hands over her head as well. She smelled the faint scent of lavender as he massaged her scalp, working shampoo through her hair. She kept her eyes close, letting her head fall back with a sigh.

Elijah's lips on her neck sent a bolt of lightning ripping through her body. She gasped, half-expecting to feel the sharp bite of teeth on her throat, but he only trailed light kisses there, working up to her earlobe, which he sucked into his mouth. Reaching forward to steady herself, she lay her fingers along his sides, feeling the muscles shift underneath them as he worked his hands over her hair, rinsing it.

He pulled away from her momentarily, and returned to rub conditioner through the tangles. _I should have figured he conditions, with that hair of his._ Jenna chanced opening her eyes; the rearview of him should have prepared her, but it hadn't, not adequately. His chest was as hard and sculpted as his back, with scars like ghosts from old, old injuries. Of the injuries from the explosion, there was no trace. Muscles rippled under the flesh as he rinsed the conditioner out of her hair, bringing goosebumps to her flesh and shooting another jolt that arrowed straight to her groin. Her gaze drew inexorably downward, where she discovered that the front view was indeed every bit as nice as the back. She felt a guilty flush spread over her skin. _His eyes are up there, Jenna. Eyes. Up. There._

The knowing look in those eyes when she glanced back up only deepened her blush. Jenna noted a bottle of body wash out of her peripheral vision and pulled away to get it. She poured a generous amount into her palm and rubbed her hands together, stepping around him to glide them over his back, working it into a lather. Elijah tried to turn around, but she slapped a hand to his shoulder. "Uh-uh." She took her time on his shoulders, his back, gradually working downward over his buttocks, out of which she was seriously considering taking a bite.

"Jenna…" Elijah said, his tone low, with a hint of warning.

"Shh." Pressing herself against his back, she eased her slippery hands around the front of him, over his chest, deep down his stomach, along the fronts of his thighs, gliding within a hair's breadth of _there_ but without ever actually touching. As the water from the rain head sluiced down over them, rinsing his back, she feathered kisses over it, occasionally licking a droplet of water from here or there. Elijah blew out a breath as she traced just her fingertips over his thighs – then inhaled sharply when she wrapped her fingers firmly around him and bit his shoulder blade.

Jenna suddenly found herself pressed up against the warm tiles by the full length of him, his erection digging into her stomach and his tongue inside her mouth. She met him fully, putting her arms around his neck and kneading the back of it with her fingers as her tongue danced along with his, fanning the flames for both of them. Elijah pulled his lips from hers to pay homage to her neck again, this time sprinkling little nips in with the kisses. Aroused almost beyond bearing, she wasn't aware of any conscious thought process behind it when she told him, "Go ahead."

He didn't seem to hear her at first, but at last her words sank in, and he pulled his face back to look into her eyes, questioning. Jenna nodded, pushing his hair back from his face. "It's okay."

She caught a quick glimpse of the veins around his eyes as they started to fill and go dark, and he pulled her hard against him, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other coming up around her throat. The bite itself didn't hurt as much as she thought it would; a sharp pinch, then a little pressure as he pressed his thumb to her neck and drank from her. Jenna dug her fingers into the back of his scalp, a little gasp escaping her as the twin sensations of him suckling at her neck and the hard length of him pressed against her set up some sort of strange biofeedback loop. Every pull at her throat drew an answering pull from her groin, and she used the wall at her back and her arms around Elijah's shoulders as leverage to draw her legs up around his waist, bring her _That. Much. Closer._

Elijah pulled his mouth away and tore his thumb open on a fang, rubbing his blood over the bite wound until it closed. Jenna pulled his mouth back to hers, not caring that she tasted her own blood on his lips as she kissed him deeply, moving her hips against him in an attempt to try and line things up. Elijah though, it appeared, had other ideas.

With seemingly no effort at all (which, she supposed for him it wasn't), Elijah grasped her around the waist and lifted her up. Jenna squeaked at the sudden elevation, flailing a hand out and grabbing the neck of one of the showerheads for balance as he settled her legs on his shoulders and, with her back against the tiles, tasted her.

"Oh _God_," she breathed as all of her senses went on red alert. Elijah's hands on her ribcage held her steady as he used his tongue and lips to torment her relentlessly, his thumbs teasing her nipples until they were so rock-hard it was almost painful. Some small part of her mind tried to form coherent thoughts with regard to the height and the slipperiness of wet tile; then he demonstrated just exactly what Andie had been talking about, and suddenly there was no thought whatsoever anymore, just wave after wave of sensation that swamped and threatened to drown her.

Her breath coming in gasping pants, Jenna hooked her ankles together behind Elijah's back as all of her muscles quivered and tensed, seeking release on the crest of that last devastating wave. Her hips moved seemingly of their own volition, rocking her against his mouth as the first tickling, tingling sensation started at her core and spread outward. As though he could tell just _exactly_ when the time was right, he gripped her hips hard to hold her still and pressed his tongue hard against her, fluttering it at a speed no human could have matched.

Jenna's world went white, then shattered into a billion brightly-colored pieces, blinding her to everything but waves of ecstasy that crashed over her again and again and again. When they started to ebb, and she could see the possibility of perhaps one day being able to think once more, Elijah restarted that relentless rhythm, making everything clench once more in anticipation of the next shattering climax.

When it came, she proved Elijah right: she was most definitely _not_ quiet.


	10. Chapter 10

**Sorry for the delay, y'all. I had a bit of a rage blackout after Thursday's finale episode. At least now I have the four-month hiatus to recover. If I ever can. Julie and Kevin, I'm watching you. :-/**

**So, without further ado, part two of the scene I feel like I should ground myself for writing, since I'm too old for my mom to do it. *deep blush* I am SO not letting my husband read this sequel.**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER TEN<strong>

Elijah lifted Jenna down, keeping his hands on her waist until he was sure her legs were going to support her – and was privately pleased with his efforts when she grasped his upper arms to steady herself for a moment. He hid the smirk by reaching back to turn off the water.

"That was…" Jenna sighed.

"A good start," he finished for her, catching her mouth for a smoldering kiss before opening the shower door and grabbing a couple of towels from the rack. He draped one over her shoulders and rubbed the other across his shoulders and torso, wicking water off of his skin as efficiently as possible. While she dried off, he sped out to the bedroom, lighting candles and starting the gas fireplace so that when Jenna emerged from the bath, the room was warmly lit by the glow of the flickering light.

She glanced around, impressed. "This vamp speed thing must come in really handy when it comes time to do housework."

"Mm." Elijah crossed to her, watching the firelight play off of her skin, flushed and moistened from the steamy bathroom. Taking her face in his hands, he lowered his lips to hers, soft and sweet. As heated as things had been in the shower, he preferred to bank that fire and feed it slowly; flames that burned too hotly flashed over and were quickly extinguished. He had every intention of making this last.

Jenna circled his wrists with her hands, turning to press a kiss into each of his palms. Elijah rested his forehead against hers as he drew her against him, stroking one hand through her hair to comb through the wet tangles while his other arm circled her waist, holding her close. "I'm glad you're here tonight," he told her.

"Me too." With a deep sigh, she settled against him, nuzzling her face against his neck and holding onto him. "I was scared," she whispered.

"Shhhhh..." He rubbed his hand down her back, then up; down and back, in a slow, soothing motion over and over again, until Jenna relaxed fully against him, and her heart rate took on a even, steady rhythm. Only then did he pull back just enough to kiss her again. He took his time, caressing her lips with his as he traced lazy circles along the back of her neck with his fingertips. He felt her hand stroke along his jaw, her thumb brushing the cleft in his chin.

Jenna brought her arms up around his neck, pushing his hair back out of his eyes and off of his forehead as she pulled his bottom lip into her mouth, suckling at it for a moment before she pulled her mouth away from his and moved it down his chin, flicking her tongue where her thumb had just been and trailing kisses down his neck. She moved into him, pushing him back a step, toward the bed. Elijah smiled and let himself be pushed until he felt the sueded microfiber against the backs of his legs.

Pulling back and looking into his eyes, Jenna raised one eyebrow at him and pushed a hand into the center of his chest. Acquiescing, he sat on the edge of the bed and put his hands on her waist to try and bring her with him, but she put her hands on his shoulders, resisting. Taking his face into her hands, as he had done to her earlier, she bent and kissed him deeply. Wrapping his arms around her hips as the passion flared between them again, he made to turn and roll her onto the bed. Once more, however, she resisted. It appeared she had other ideas.

Jenna tore her mouth away from his and knelt slowly down onto the carpet, between his knees. Smoothing her hands first along the tops of his thighs, then along the insides, she locked her eyes with his in a smoldering, wicked look and took him into her mouth.

Elijah hissed out a breath as her lips and tongue touched him, followed by fingers that softly caressed and kneaded all of the sensitive areas. "Jenna – "

"Shhhhh," she parroted back at him, making him shiver as he felt as well as heard it. Needing something to do with his hands, he stroked her hair as she worked her magic on him. It was always obvious when a woman didn't really enjoy what she was doing, only participating out of some misguided sense of obligation; that wasn't the case with Jenna. She did enjoy it, just as he had enjoyed her earlier. Satisfied that she was content, Elijah let his head fall back and surrendered to her.

Sensing his acquiescence, she took all of him in briefly, pulling a gasp from him as all of his senses jumped several steps up the alert scale. He both heard and felt her chuckle at his reaction, which sent another shockwave ripping through him, making him curse and tighten his fingers in her hair before he consciously made himself let go, gripping the coverlet instead. Her tongue dancing over a particularly sensitive spot made his whole body spasm involuntarily as a groan escaped him.

Normally a very patient man, Elijah was reminded forcefully – yet again – that his body had been ignored in this manner for far, far too long, and Jenna was taking full advantage of that lapse, making him shudder and jerk and gasp as her mouth flirted over him, by turns playful and forceful. He had to make her stop.

"Jenna..."

"Mmm..."

_Jolt!_ His hips jerked forward as that hum, low in her throat, brought him right to the brink. He bit down on his lip, hard. "Jenna, you – "

She closed around him, pressing her thumb to the base of him and running it upward. _Jolt!_ "You have to – "

Again, she took the whole length of him in, and he felt the delicious rasp of teeth as she withdrew. _Jolt! _

"Jesus, Jenna, you need to – " _JOLT!_ He gasped in a ragged breath. "You can't – I can't – "

Her dark eyes looking up at him, she fluttered her tongue over him as he whimpered, and as the last of his control started to shred, he saw triumph in them. Gripping her fingers hard around him, she took him in deep again, and shot him over the edge.

The force of the climax made his back arch hard enough that he heard it snap as he poured himself into her, rocking against her lips as each spasm shook him. He dimly registered a ripping noise as he clenched the coverlet in his fist, trying to anchor himself. Wave after wave her mouth worked him, until he was fairly certain he was going to die from the sheer sensation of it and resurrect sometime later in the evening. At last he spent himself and, shuddering and gasping, fell back on the bed, his feet still on the floor and Jenna rising up to stand between them, her mission accomplished.

His eyes closed, Elijah felt her weight settle on the bed as she pressed a kiss to his forehead. He cracked one eye open and glanced up to see her lying on her stomach, her head near his, sporting a very self-satisfied smirk. "Quite pleased with yourself, aren't you?" he murmured.

The smirk widened a little. "Not as pleased as you are, I think."

"Oh?" In a quick blur, Elijah moved so that he was over her, his teeth nipping lightly at the back of her neck, making her squeal.

"Hey! You aren't supposed to be able to move yet, mister!"

"I'm a vampire," he reminded her, running his tongue along her ear-lobe. "We recover quickly." He slipped one hand underneath her on the bed, cupping her breast with it.

"Mm," she groaned. "I seem to remember something about that now."

On his hands and knees over her, Elijah pressed kissed after kiss along Jenna's neck and spine, nipping here and there as he went and caressing her breast, her side, her hip. She pushed up on one hand, as though to turn over, but Elijah pressed his weight to her to keep her from turning. "Uh-uh," he murmured. Using his knee to part her legs a little, he kissed the small of her back and reached around her hip to stroke his hand between her legs.

Jenna moaned and arched her back up a little. Elijah let his fingers play over her as he slid back up her body. Feasting on her neck and shoulders, he kept his senses trained on her, waiting for a jump in heart-rate and the scent of hormones to tell him when she was ready.

When she was, he raised her hips and slid inside her.

Jenna groaned and gripped the covers, just as Elijah had earlier. He covered her hand with his, pulling almost out of her before sliding home again. The third time, a sudden gasp and the answering kick in her heartbeat showed him he had found the spot; after that, he hit it unerringly. When she started to clench around him, he took her harder and felt her jerk underneath him as she came.

As her tremors subsided, Elijah slowed his rhythm and wrapped an arm underneath her, straightening so he was on his knees and pulling her up with him, giving his hands full access to the front of her. He stilled his hips and let his fingers bring her back after a short lull, resuming movement when her breath started coming in quick pants again to send her flying back over the edge.

Elijah held that pattern until he felt himself getting close. Humans were fragile, and even with the best of intentions, too tight a grasp in the throes of passion could crush her. Afraid of hurting her when the time came, he separated from her and lay back, urging her on top. He let Jenna take control from there, setting her own rhythm.

This time, when she went, he went with her.

* * *

><p>Jenna stretched out beside him, laying her head on his shoulder. Elijah pulled the blanket up around her when he felt the gooseflesh along her arm. "There were supposed to be chocolates, and a truly excellent bottle of wine, you know," he murmured into her hair.<p>

"Mmm... chocolate," she said drowsily, snuggling into him. She was asleep within minutes.

Elijah lay there, listening to the sounds of the night before he too dropped off to sleep.

* * *

><p><em>Kingdom of Wessex, England, 883 A.D.<em>

It was well after midnight and into the morning when Elijah let himself in through the servants' quarters. In the three weeks since he had returned home from battle – a battle from which they had finally emerged victorious, thanks to the ritual he and the others had undergone – it had become his custom to leave the household when it started bustling in the mornings, returning at night when all had quieted. Then, he could sit in his study and hear himself think. He could walk through the house without being accosted at every turn by someone wanting something. He could exist in the same house as his family without wanting to tear their throats out.

This night, though, when he passed silently down the hall and crept into his study, his wife was there, awaiting him.

Leah had lit only a single candle, but the light was more than adequate for his now-heightened senses. She was in her shift and dressing gown, as though she had risen from bed, unable to sleep. As he entered the study, she pushed aside the blanket she had draped over her legs to guard against the chill. Her long, dark hair was unbound and fell in curls almost to her waist, which was barely wider than it had been when he had wed her, despite her having born him five children. She stood, and Elijah could see just by her stance that his days of politely avoiding her had come to an end.

"The hour is late," he told her, rather unnecessarily. "You should be abed."

"Yes, I should. With my husband." Leah moved to stand in front of him, reaching out a hand and placing it on his arm to stop him when he would have stepped around her. "Your return has been nearly one month hence, Elijah, yet you have barely spoken. Indeed, you are barely present. What troubles you so, my love?"

"Nothing you need dwell on. I should review the household accounts." He moved to go around her again.

She took his hand as he tried to pass. "Was it something that happened in battle?"

"We won the battle," he answered shortly, freeing his hand. "Now, please: return to bed and allow me to work." Elijah moved the candle from the stand by the divan and set it on the desk, pulling a large ledger from the shelves behind it. Cracking it open to the last three months' worth, he sat in the chair and uncapped the inkwell.

Leah slapped her hand on the ledger and gave it a mighty shove, sending it flying off the side of the desk. Elijah leapt up to avoid being sprayed with the ink as the book clipped it and knocked it off the desk. "Bloody hell! Are you mad, woman?"

"Bloody right I am!" She rounded the desk, all but pinning him to the bookcase with a finger drilled into his chest. He could see her working herself up to a truly fine temper. "You disappear all day and for most of the night, and for the few hours you _are_ here, you do whatever necessary to avoid me and the children. You are not injured, not that I can see, nor are you ill. This is not like you, Elijah. My God, Mary came running and hid beneath my skirts this morning after you passed her on your way out the door. Your own daughter has grown frightened of you!" Leah emphasized the last with another vicious jab to his chest.

"Perhaps she _should_ be. Perhaps you all should be."

"Does this have to do with that foolishness with Klaus?" she demanded, crossing her arms in front of her.

_Foolishness?_ He had to get away from her. He stepped to the side, only to have her block him again. In the next breath, he had her shoved against the bookcase, his hand around her throat. "Yes, _Leah_. That _foolishness_ with Klaus. That _foolishness_ that made it possible for us to save our homes here." Elijah felt her pulse flutter under his thumb, where it pressed against her throat. He could hear it whispering to him, calling from under her skin. He could feel his own veins filling around his eyes as fangs pressed against his lip.

With a monumental effort of will, he whirled away from her, crossing the room to lean his arms on the mantel over a long-cold hearth. He sucked in deep breath after deep breath and clenched his fists, anything he could think of to keep from crossing the room again and tearing out his wife's throat.

"Helen fled, you know," she said conversationally, into the charged silence. "Before Klaus could return home again. She said that he was no longer her husband, that he had become a monster."

Elijah clenched his eyes shut, afraid the emotion there would spill over. "Helen was right," he whispered, laying his head on his arms.

He jerked, startled when slipped her arms around his waist and pressed against his back. "Helen was a fool," she told him, her disdain for the woman clear. "Klaus was always a monster. No arcane ritual was necessary to demonstrate that; anyone with eyes could see it. Elijah, look at me."

"Please," he begged. "Leah, don't."

"Look at me," she said, more firmly. When he still didn't move, she slipped around to the side and turned his face toward her.

He didn't know how much was visible to her in the dim light, but he could still feel vestiges of the bloodlust marking him. The thought of what he could do to her... what he _wanted_ to do to her…

But Leah was not a woman easily cowed. She took his face into her hands, rubbing her thumbs along his cheeks, under his eyes where the veins still ran dark and ugly. She pressed her lips to his. "You are _not_ a monster, Elijah. You. Are. My. _Husband_. Whatever this... this _thing_ is that Klaus has pressed upon you, I will not allow it to take you. I will not allow _him_ to take you. Do you understand me? _I will not allow it_. You belong to _me_."

He turned his face from her, unable to bear the scrutiny. "Leah, please…" he whispered hoarsely. He wasn't even certain what he begged her for. Space? Understanding? Absolution?

"_Hush_." Leah pulled him to her. He resisted at first, but her fingers in his hair and on the back of his neck soothed him, and he let his head fall onto her shoulder, let her give him that small comfort. "I need you," she told him softly. "Our children need you."

He held her to him. "There will be no more." It was the first time he'd said it out loud, that he had let himself think it, really. Whatever magic or demonic force – he no longer knew which – drove him, he knew that he had died. Whether he was man or demon now, he was dead, and life did not spring from death. He could add no more to their family.

Leah pulled away from him. Taking his hand, she placed it on her belly, under her dressing gown. "There will be one more." Startled, he stared into her eyes. She met his gaze steadily. "Before you rode out, you left something behind."

Slowly, he spread his fingers out, and felt the small bump underneath, where she was just beginning to swell with his sixth, and final, child. His emotions, kept viciously dammed to that point, surged and broke through, crashing and raging through him until he was certain they must drown him, but through the maelstrom she held him, kept him anchored to her, to himself, to what he had been before he had allowed Klaus to change him. "It will be all right," she murmured to him, over and over as she held him to her.

And for just that little bit, he had allowed himself to believe her.

* * *

><p>Jenna shifted and rolled over, waking Elijah from the dream. He rolled with her and spooned against her back, his arm draped over her. She sighed contentedly and locked her fingers with his, dropping back into sleep after a few moments. Elijah remained awake, senses trained around him.<p>

He couldn't remember the last time he had dreamt of Leah. He had long ago trained his conscious mind not to think of her, not to let his mind dwell there. Because he _had_ hurt her. But not that night. That night he had let her lead him to their bed, and made love to her. He had held her against him when she slept, listening to her slow, steady breathing, and the fluttering, staccato beat of his unborn child's heart.

Just as he could hear Jenna's child now.

Elijah slipped his hand out of hers and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling as he sorted through all of the implications of that realization.

An hour later, still awake, he slipped quietly out of bed and left the room.


	11. Chapter 11

**Surprise! How's that for a quick update? **

**Since I'll be at dog shows Thursday through Sunday and won't have time to write and update, I took pity on the characters and didn't leave them hanging from any cliffs. Hope y'all will come back after the weekend anyway!**

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><p><em>So what is love, then? Is it dictated, or chosen?<em>

_Does it sing like the hymns of a thousand years, or is it just pop emotion?_

_And if it ever was there and it left, does it mean it was never true?_

_And to exist it must elude; is that why I think these things of you?_

-The Indigo Girls, "Mystery"

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

Jenna stretched, rolled over, and reached an arm out, only to realize that she was alone. Disappointed, she sat up, opening her eyes and rubbing sleep out of them. Sunlight, filtered by the trees to the side of the house, shone through the windows; a quick glance at the clock showed her it was already past nine. No wonder Elijah was already up and about. She had slept like the dead. Heh, _with_ the dead. Heading into the bathroom to take care of the necessaries, she supposed she really shouldn't be greedy, but she wouldn't have minded a replay of last night. Not _at all_.

Elijah had thoughtfully set her bag inside the door of the bedroom, so Jenna fished her clothes out and dressed, leaving her feet bare. She pulled a brush through her hair, doing what she could with it, considering she had slept (among other things) on it wet. Padding back into the bathroom, she brushed her teeth, then decided she had forestalled the morning-after awkwards for as long as she could.

He was outside on the balcony that ran off of the kitchen, staring down over the lake. Jenna took a moment to appreciate the view. He hadn't put on a jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up, giving him a more casual look than he usually sported. She didn't think he'd ever look _truly_ casual, not even naked. Especially not naked. The air of power and control was intrinsic to him; the suits had nothing to do with it. In his case, the clothes didn't make the man. The man made the clothes.

Spying the half-full coffee pot, she gave it a precautionary sniff. Her stomach must have been inclined to forgive and forget the previous incident, because it smelled heavenly to her. Fingers crossed, she opened the fridge. Sure enough, there was a little carton of cream in there. God. The man really was perfect. Well, except for that whole blood-sucking, undead, ancient vampire thing. And even that had its perks, which he had more than amply demonstrated last night. Jenna sighed. She needed to be careful. She was already half-way to stupid over him.

Smiling to herself, Jenna opened the French door and stepped out, suddenly wishing she had put some socks on. Joining him at the rail, she set her mug on it, next to his, and slid her arms around his waist. "Hey." Okay, so as morning-after greetings went it wasn't exactly witty.

"Good morning." He laid his arm across her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He picked up his coffee and drank. "How are you feeling?" he asked, gesturing toward her own mug.

"Fine. I'm apparently over the coffee wiggins. Thank God." She retrieved it and took a sip. "You got up early," she said, oh-so-casually.

"Mm."

_Well, that was nicely monosyllabic_, she thought, when he seemed disinclined to say anything more. Apparently even a thousand years of experience didn't banish the awkwards. Good to know. She tried to think of something else to say, something that wouldn't sound completely inane. Or clingy. Or needy. Or too soon. The harder she thought about it, the more blank her mind became. _Great. Apparently it actually _is _possible to screw your brains out._ Jenna balanced and put one foot on the calf of her other leg to warm it, then switched did absolutely nothing to make her look or feel any brighter. Or warmer.

"Here, you're cold," he said, turning her toward the door. "Let's go in."

Jenna did as he bid, going to the coffee pot to top off her mug as he shut the door. "So, any big plans today?" she asked, wincing at the over-bright tone in her voice that made her sound like some deranged, cracked-out Pollyanna. Elijah merely lifted a brow at her, a grin playing at the corners of his mouth. "Okay, all right! I suck at this morning after thing! I never have any clue what to say. 'Hey, loved meeting your penis last night!' just doesn't really strike the right chord, you know? It's stupid, and it's awkward, but there it is. I am inept." She took a big swallow of her coffee, blushing furiously.

Elijah rubbed his hand over his mouth. Jenna was pretty sure he was stifling a laugh. "Jenna?" He leaned on the island and held a hand out to her. She rolled her eyes, but took it. He raised it to his lips, kissing the back of her fingers and, looking at her earnestly, told her, "I loved meeting your vagina, too."

"Oh, shut _up_!" She tried to pull her hand away, but Elijah wouldn't let go, coming around the counter and pulling her to him, chuckling. She put up a token resistance before snuggling against him, blushing and laughing.

"Better?"

"Yeah," she agreed reluctantly.

"Good. Because there's something I need to ask you."

"What?"

Elijah released her and lifted their coffee mugs from the counter, nodding toward the living room as he carried them in and set them on the coffee table. Jenna followed, not sure she liked the sudden shift into seriousness. She lowered herself onto the leather sofa, facing him as he sat. "What?" she repeated, when he sat watching her.

He hesitated, then pushed forward. "When was the last time you were with Alaric?"

Jenna paused with her coffee mug halfway to her mouth. "Excuse me?"

"Intimately, I mean."

_I know what you mean._ So help her God, if this was his roundabout way of calling her a slut, she was going to punch him in the balls, vampire or no. "Yeah, I got that." Jenna set her mug back down, perhaps harder than strictly necessary, and crossed her arms in front of her. "I'm just trying to figure out what the hell business it is of yours."

"That's not…" He blew out a breath. "I don't mean to put you on the defensive."

"_Really_."

"I assure you, that wasn't my intent.

"Because gee, Elijah, I don't know. How long has it been for _you_?"

Elijah closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It wasn't meant to be an inquisition."

She gestured impatiently. "Then what the hell kind of a question was that?"

"This isn't going well," he sighed.

"How exactly were you expecting it to go?"

"Fine. Let me rephrase the question, then: When is the last time you bled?"

_What. The. Fuck?_ Then it dawned on her. Jenna shook her head. "Okay. I get it. The throwing up thing. Jesus, Elijah. A woman can hurl without her being pregnant. Well, unless she's on a soap opera. Seriously."

"That doesn't actually answer the question, Jenna."

"Christ! I don't know! Things have been just a little crazy. In case you hadn't noticed." She'd had her period when… well, it would have been… she hadn't had it since before she had stayed here, and that was… _a month ago._ But before that… it was… she didn't think she had had it since Isobel… which…

Unable to sit still, Jenna paced to the window, wracking her brain. It couldn't have been that long… could it? Wouldn't she have noticed? _Apparently not,_ a snide little voice popped up into her head to say. She jumped when Elijah put his hands on her shoulders.

"Jenna."

She shook her head vehemently. "I need to think. I just need to figure out…"

"Jenna, you're – "

"I'm not pregnant!" _I can't be I can't be I can't be – _

Elijah turned her to face him. "I can hear your child's heartbeat," he said quietly. "You are pregnant."

_Heartbeat?_ Jenna backed away from him, still shaking her head. "No. No no no no." She turned to look out the big window, pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle the torrent of denial. This was not happening. This could _not_ be happening. She'd been careful. _They'd_ been careful. They'd always used a condom. _Always? _the voice mocked. Almost always! Maybe once or twice, when they hadn't had one, or couldn't wait… _It only takes once._

"Oh my God," she said, her voice hitching on a sob. Elijah stroked a hand down her back, but she spun away from him. "That's it. The final 'eff you' from the Universe. The big, neon sign flashing over my head: 'Jenna is a monumental screw-up.'" She dashed tears off of her cheeks and pulled her hair back from her face, resting her hands on the top of her head as she paced. "It's been almost four months. How can I be four months pregnant and not even realize it? Who _does_ that? Okay, really fat, stupid people on TLC do that. Oh my God."

Elijah reached a hand out to her on one of her passes by, but she avoided it. "I have to get out of here," she decided.

"Why don't you wait for a bit until – "

"No! I have to go." Jenna strode out to the kitchen, searching the table by the door for her keys.

"Jenna – "

"Just – leave me alone. I have to get out of here." She found the keys and headed toward the door.

"Jenna – "

"I have to go!"

"_Shoes_."

"What?"

Elijah glanced down at her feet. Her bare feet. "I'll get them. Just… hold a moment." He disappeared into the bedroom, returning with her shoes in one hand and her bag in the other. Sniffling, she took the shoes and stuffed her feet into them. "I wish you wouldn't leave while you're this upset."

"I… I just have to go. I need to think. I'm s-sorry."

Elijah took her chin and tilted her face up to him. "Please be careful?"

Jenna nodded, took her bag, and left.

* * *

><p>When Andie opened the door to her apartment, Jenna held the bag from the drug store up in front of her. "I have to pee on these," she told her.<p>

Andie's eyebrows climbed halfway up her forehead. "Uh… okay…"

Jenna pushed past her and marched down the hallway to the bathroom. "Who wants to watch _Cars_?" she heard the witch ask brightly.

Conner's footsteps thundered past the closed bathroom door. "Me me me!"

"Okay. You sit down baby, and Mommy will bring you some popcorn, okay?"

"Yay!"

Jenna opened the first pregnancy test while Conner made car noises in the living room, then thought, _screw it_ and opened all of them, so that by the time Andie had gotten Conner settled and tapped on the door, she had six sticks of varying shapes and sizes all sitting on the sink and taking their requisite amounts of time to process. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah." Jenna was sitting on the edge of the tub, staring at the collection when Andie opened the door and stepped in.

The witch folded down the toilet cover and sat. "Okay, sweetie. What's going on?"

"I had sex with Elijah last night and I'm pregnant," Jenna told her, checking her watch and grabbing the first stick. Big fat plus sign.

"I… don't think that's quite how it works."

Jenna checked the second stick. The readout said 'pregnant.' "No, not… It was Alaric. Obviously. But Elijah told me I was pregnant."

Andie raised her eyebrows and looked off to the side. "Awkward…"

She looked at the third stick. Another plus sign. "He said he could hear the _heartbeat_. How fucked up is that?"

"Pretty fucked up," she agreed.

"Shit. Where's that box?" she asked, looking at the fourth. "Is it one line or two for 'Oh my God you are totally screwed?'"

Andie stood and took her arms as Jenna started pawing frantically through the bag, looking for the right box. "All right, hon', I think it's pretty safe to say that you are indeed pregnant. Let's throw these away and go sit, okay?"

Jenna let herself be led out to the kitchen and nudged into a chair. Andie set a cup of coffee in front of her and dropped a bag of chocolate donuts onto the table. Jenna took one and bit into it morosely. Andie sat down opposite her and grabbed a donut for herself. "Okay, first things first: how far along are you?"

"Three and a half, four months?"

"You didn't have any inkling?"

"With everything that's been happening?" Jenna took a sip of coffee. "I… I never even gave it a thought. Isobel happened, and then I wasn't having sex, so I just wasn't that aware of having my period. Or not, as the case may be."

"Understandable, I guess. Wow."

"Yeah." Jenna polished off the donut, washed it down with her coffee, and reached for another. "What the hell am I going to do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't think I really have any choice, do I? I mean, four months?"

"I don't know. Maybe not. I mean… I don't know." Andie rose and refilled her coffee cup, then poured milk into a sippy cup and took it out to Conner. "What about Ric?" she asked as she came back into the kitchen.

Jenna folded her legs and pulled her feet up onto the chair with her to sit cross-legged. "I don't even know where he is.

"He shouldn't be too hard to find. We can check with Damon; I bet he knows."

"I don't even know if I want to tell him."

"And I get that, but… don't you think you should?"

Jenna glanced in the direction of the living room, where Conner was saying lines along with the movie. "Did you tell his father?"

"Little different circumstance. He's aware, but… it wasn't exactly like either one of us had a choice."

Come to think of it, Andie never had told her about Conner's father. "How do you mean?"

Andie shook her head. "Another story for another time. We're talking about you now."

"I don't know what else there is to say. I'm knocked up. By my ex-boyfriend, who is God-knows-where. And I'm apparently so stupid that my current boyfriend had to point it out to me."

Andie reached for a second donut as well, muttering something under her breath about how she'd known she shouldn't have bought them. "So how did _that_ go?"

Jenna shrugged. "He was pretty sweet about it. I think. I don't know. It's all sort of a blur right now. I stayed there last night after the bombing, and we – "

"Whoa, wait! After the _what_, now?"

"Oh. Yeah. We went to that mixer thing on campus last night. Elijah's car got car-bombed."

Andie stared at her, wide-eyed for a moment, then started to giggle, though she tried not to. "Girlfriend, the fact that a car-bombing didn't even seem worth mentioning should maybe make you ask yourself some things about your current lifestyle."

Jenna's sense of humor kicked in, and she started to giggle too. That fed Andie's laughter, which in turn kept hers going, and before long they were both sitting at the table, howling. Jenna wasn't even aware of when she started crying instead.

Andie pulled a chair over next to Jenna, dropping and arm around her shoulders. "All right, sweetie. Everything will work itself out, okay?"

"Promise?"

"Sure."

"Liar."

"Yup."

Jenna cried on Andie's shoulder for a little while, gradually getting herself under control. When she was, she took a napkin off the table and blew her nose. "Well that was nicely bipolar."

"Hormones. You're entitled." Andie stood and went to the coffeepot, only to realize it was empty. "So, to recap," she said, as she started fixing another pot, "Elijah has people bombing his car, you had sex with him, and he informed you you're pregnant. Since you obviously survived the bombing, and I think we've covered the pregnancy thing, let's get down to what_ really_ matters and talk about the sex."

"You are such a pervert. No wonder we're friends."

"Come on, dish."

Jenna broke a half off of one of the remaining donuts. "You're trying to distract me, aren't you?"

"Is it working?"

Jenna smiled, and decided to let her friend distract her for a little while. "Well, _first_…"


	12. Chapter 12

**I hate this. I should know better than to take a hiatus from writing, even for a few days of dog shows. My brain goes mushy, I lose what little semblance of continuity I have, and my characters punish me by refusing to do what I want them to. Harumph. I am Grumpy and Out Of Sorts, people.**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER TWELVE<strong>

The call from Damon could not possibly have come at a better time. The officer investigating the bombing had been easy enough to compel into believing that the investigation was over and done with, but getting to that particular gentleman had been a veritable obstacle course of peons and red tape, so much so that he had at one point begun to consider the massacre of everyone in the building an actual, viable option. After that experience, he was looking forward with particular relish to the opportunity to "interrogate" a hapless subject. Slipping his phone back into his breast pocket as he exited the police station, Elijah unlocked his new vehicle – a Range Rover this time – and headed toward the Salvatore house, where Damon and Marcus were sitting on an unknown vampire that they had dragged home during the wee hours of the morning.

Elijah had spent the first half hour or so after Jenna left berating himself for the mess he'd made of things. Not that he could imagine _any _scenario in which a woman would prefer to be informed by her paramour of such matters, rather than the turnabout. As if the baptism-by-fire into the world of the supernatural weren't enough, now Jenna had this all too human situation to contend with. The one, he would do all he could to protect her from. The other… well, the choice of how to handle that would be hers, and hers alone.

And what of the child's father? Elijah was in no way anxious to see a return of Alaric Saltzman to Mystic Falls. True, Jenna had thoroughly disavowed any desire to have further relation with the man, but that was before the whisper of a new life had tethered them inextricably together, in ways he doubted either would fully understand or appreciate immediately. He had little doubt that Saltzman would leap at any opportunity to crawl back into Jenna's life. The only question was in what capacity Jenna would allow it. And where exactly would he himself stand in the equation?

Where did he _want_ to stand?

_Question for another time._ Elijah shook it off and turned his attention to matters about which he _could_ do something. Such as their little "friends" on campus… He would need to somehow convince Jenna to stay away from there until the professor and whatever cohorts he had could be dealt with. He didn't believe for a moment that the location of the car bombing was a coincidence, especially when the professor himself had handed Jenna the parking pass for a reserved space. That, coupled with his strange behavior and his digging at Jenna for information, made his involvement highly probable. The question was at whose behest.

And yet… something felt off. Of all the ways for another vampire – another Original – to come at him, a car bomb wouldn't have made his list of top one hundred guesses. It was too public, too indiscriminate, too unsubtle… and too ineffective. But if Mitchell wasn't in league with Sebastian or one of the others, why the full court press? Surely Jenna's scribbled notes regarding the supernatural weren't enough to draw such a target on her back that a bombing was the de facto solution. Either way, it was time he took a more proactive approach to dealing with the problem. With that in mind, Elijah took his phone out again and began a series of phone calls.

* * *

><p>Elijah's last call as he neared the Salvatore house went to Jenna's number. He was expecting to get her voicemail, so he was more than a little surprised when she answered with her usual, "Hey."<p>

"Jenna. I wanted to call and check in. How are you?"

"Pregnant."

"Yes, I… think we covered that earlier."

"I took a test anyway, just to be sure. Well okay, I took six of them." He heard her sigh. "Couldn't you have been wrong, just this once?"

"Sorry."

"Yeah. Me too. I think the donuts and the girl-talk have averted the five-alarm freakout. I'm progressing to the 'holy shit, what the hell do I do now?' phase."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Not unless Originals can alter the space-time continuum."

"Sadly, no."

"I figured. What are you doing today?"

"Right now I'm headed out to the Salvatores'. You?"

"I'm headed home shortly. Conner has been fighting a nap for the last hour and he's working himself up to a full-blown tantrum. I'd prefer to spend a little more time in denial before facing the fact that I'm going to have one of those tantrum-throwing things."

"Do you want me to come by later?"

"Would you be mad if I said no? I want to talk to Elena and Jeremy, let them know about… you know."

"Of course. I understand."

"How about later tonight, though? I could drive up to your place. I somehow doubt I'm going to be able to focus on my abstract anyway."

"About that… I think it would be wise for you to stay away from campus until we have a better handle on all of the factors in play."

"I don't think that's an option."

"Neither is getting yourself killed. Work from home. The panel will accept your abstract." He'd seen to that.

"Can we argue about this later?"

"I prefer to think of it as a discussion."

"Whatever. And Elijah?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't even think about locking me up in your house again."

God, it was tempting. "How about a vacation somewhere? You could take Jeremy and Elena, go someplace warm…"

"I'm not running. Or hiding. Deal with it."

"Duly noted." Elijah signaled and turned into the Salvatore driveway. "I'm here. I'll see you later, then?"

"Yeah."

Elijah ended the call and let himself into the house. Damon, Stefan and Marcus were in the library. He didn't need super-hearing to hear the protests emanating from the cell down in the basement. "Gentlemen."

Damon rose and went to the bar to pour him a drink. "That was quick."

"I wasn't far. So, tell me about your guest. Where did you find him?"

"Actually, he found us. Showed up at the Grill after Caroline left." Damon shot Marcus a sidelong glance. "He hit on Sophia."

"It follows. She's a beautiful woman. Was she able to glean any information from him?"

"She _might_ have, if Caveman here hadn't gone all He-Man on him and invited him to step outside."

Marcus shifted uncomfortably. "He was all over her."

"He had a hand on her elbow!"

Stefan leaned forward on the couch. "Why don't we go downstairs and see what he has to say?" he interjected, forestalling further argument between the other two vampires.

Elijah made an 'after you' motion, following the Salvatore brothers down the basement steps, Marcus bringing up the rear. As they rounded the corner, the captive directed a string of invective in their general direction, invective that sharpened when he saw Marcus. Damon threw the bolt on the door with a "yeah yeah yeah." The captive, outnumbered four to one, wisely chose to stand rather than making a break for it.

Saying nothing, Elijah casually slipped his jacket off and hung it on a hook outside the door. Unbuttoning his cuffs, he made a show of rolling up his sleeves. Not until he'd done so did he step forward and address the unknown vampire. "What is your name?" he asked, conversationally.

"What the fuck is it to you?"

Too fast for the other vampires to see, Elijah shot his foot out, shattering the man's left knee and bending his leg backward to about a 45-degree angle. The vampire let out a loud shriek and sank down onto his good knee, fighting to stay upright even that much. Elijah examined his fingernails, then asked, in the same tone of voice as before, "Your name?"

"Geoffrey Landan," he spat out.

"See, that wasn't so difficult. Do you know who I am, Geoffrey?"

"Should I?"

With a roll of his eyes, Elijah wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled him up so they were eye to eye. "Perhaps I should explain how this works. I ask you questions, and you answer them. Without editorializing. Now, I'll ask you again: do you know who I am?"

The vampire eyed him contemptuously, but resisted the urge to smart off. "No."

"Why are you here?"

"Because these assholes grabbed me and threw me in here!" he answered, glaring at Damon and Marcus in turn.

"Why are you here _in town_?"

"I was just passing through. Jesus, is that a crime?"

Elijah gave him a small, cold smile and patted his cheek as he released the vampire's neck and set him on his good leg – only to kick it out from under him. "I believe I warned you about editorializing." Crouching down, Elijah balanced on the balls of his feet to put them at an even height, and tried to catch his eyes. As he exerted his will, he could feel the younger vampire resisting him, setting off a mental tug of war between them. Not vervain; the vampire's mind would have slid harmlessly away from his if he were dosed with the herb. More likely he had been previously compelled to avoid further compulsion, or to resist Elijah specifically. Landan kept his gaze on Elijah's though, giving him a strange smile. He shifted his lower jaw to the side, grinding his teeth together.

A bright light flared from the vampire's mouth as it dropped open, giving his face a strange, eerie, lit-from-within effect and drawing a startled yelp from Marcus. A split second later, flames poured out of his mouth, nose, eyes and ears as his head was consumed in a flash inferno. Elijah shot backward, away from the intense heat, as the chest split open. Fire flowed like magma down over Landan's ribs, igniting clothing and flesh as the flames fed greedily on the vampire's corpse. Hungry fingers of it reached out, seeking other materials it could use as fuel. The rock floor and walls offered it nothing, but it made a couple of leaping grabs for the wooden beams overhead.

Damon zipped around the corner and back in with a fire extinguisher. Pulling the pin, he aimed and sprayed a layer of foam over what was left of the body, adding a chemical smell to the aroma of charred flesh. Suffocated, the fire quickly sputtered and died out. Damon remained poised with the extinguisher, watching for secondary flare-ups, but none sprang up, and he gradually relaxed his stance.

Once assured that the fire was indeed out, Stefan and Marcus crept closer to the body, peering at it with twin expressions of confusion. Marcus cleared his throat. "I think I speak for all of us when I say: What the fuck just happened?"

Elijah sauntered closer, making a slow circle around the corpse as he studied it. Globs of foam oozed off of the charred remains, taking with it blackened flakes of clothing and flesh. Little remained of the vampire's head; the skin and hair had burned away completely, while the skull had split from the sudden heat and its accompanying pressure, leaving the lower jaw swinging loose from one half as he stooped and picked up the two pieces. He pulled the lower jawbone away from the upper and studied it, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Tossing it down next to the body, he flipped the pieces of the upper jaw over, squinting at the nubs of bone that had been teeth.

_There_. On the left hand side, one of the back molars had been hollowed out. If he looked closely, Elijah could see blackened, molten fragments of what had at some point been some sort of capsule. He would have to have it examined to find out what it had held that could have caused the vampire to combust so quickly, but whatever the material used, one thing was clear – whoever had placed it there had gone to great pains to ensure that this particular minion would not talk if captured.

Elijah tossed the irrelevant half of the skull away and held up the part with the hollowed-out molar for them to see. "Suicide capsule."

"Capsule of _what_?" Damon asked, giving it that wild-eyed look of his.

"Well, that's the question, isn't it?"

"Vervain wouldn't do that," Stefan pointed out.

"No," Elijah agreed. "Some chemical that ignites when exposed to oxygen, perhaps…?"

Marcus stepped forward. "Whatever it was, that light it gave off at the beginning was ultraviolet. I felt it burn when it hit my skin."

"Whereas we all have sun rings so it wouldn't have affected us," Damon finished the thought.

Elijah lifted his brows as he examined the upper jaw again, nodding in appreciation. "How perfectly elegant," he said, impressed. He would most definitely have to have someone analyze the compound used.

"_Elegant_?" Stefan sputtered.

"Ultraviolet radiation to guarantee a rapid death and consumption. Like a tiny sun, devouring him from the inside," he breathed. "It's almost… poetic." _And terribly, terribly clever._ Oh, he wanted some!

"You want some alone time with that?" Damon snarked, going across the hall and coming back with a large plastic tarp. "A little help, here," he added, shooting a look at Marcus and Stefan.

One corner of Elijah's mouth lifted in a small smile. "No, but I'll be taking this with me. I have people who can analyze what was used."

_And hopefully duplicate it_.

* * *

><p>Dusk was just falling by the time Elijah and Damon returned from disposing of the body. Elijah had secured his 'prize' at home, where it would await pick-up. Stefan and Marcus had cleaned the room in the basement while they were out, and were settled in the great room, in front of the fireplace. Damon broke out a new bottle of whiskey and passed four tumblers around.<p>

Marcus accepted it and pulled out his cell phone to check it, huffing out a sigh and tossing it onto the coffee table when it showed no messages. Downing the whiskey, he rose and refilled the glass, this time to the brim, before settling back onto the sofa. Elijah lifted a brow in inquiry and tried to catch his eye, but Marcus was apparently settling himself in for a good long sulk.

"Sophia told him off and left him high and dry at the Grill last night, after the attack of the green-eyed monster," Damon offered, by way of explanation. "Speaking of women," he continued, turning toward his brother, "where's little miss Elena tonight? Isn't Saturday 'date night?'"

"Jenna asked her to stay home this evening."

"Cock-blocked by her aunt," Damon drawled. "Guess it's just you and the five pointer sisters tonight."

Stefan raised his glass to him in a mock salute. "I'm sure you know them well."

Damon settled into the wingback chair and put his feet on the ottoman. "So I'm guessing we have this Sebastian guy to thank for our fiery friend?" he asked Elijah.

Elijah had been considering that. "I don't think so." Like the car bombing, it didn't strike him as a move Sebastian would make. Whereas the bombing was too loud and showy, this level of sophistication and elegance argued for a cooler and more subtle head than Sebastian's. "I would say Edmund, if I were to guess."

That pulled Marcus out of his reverie for a moment. "I thought you and he got along?"

"We do – to a point," Elijah said, sipping his drink.

"I'm guessing not so much, now that you've killed his lackey," Damon put in.

Elijah shrugged. "Happens." His phone buzzed; Sophia, according to the caller ID. He pushed the button to answer it. "Sophia."

Marcus sat bolt upright, looking at him expectantly.

"I think I may have a lead on where your professor and his little plaything will be this evening," Sophia told him. He could hear lots of background noise, as though she were at a party, or in a rather raucous bar. "It sounds like they're going to a meeting of sorts. Shall I follow up?"

"Please."

_Where is she?_ Marcus mouthed at him, _sotto voce._

"Marcus is here, Sophia. He'd like to speak with you."

"And _I _would like him to grow up and stop acting like a 203 year-old imbecile, but we don't all get what we want, do we?" No need to repeat for Marcus's benefit; they could all hear both sides of the conversation perfectly well. "I'll call you tomorrow, Elijah." Sophia disconnected the call.

"Oooh, _burn_," Damon muttered into his drink.

Marcus shot off of the couch and went back to the bar for another refill. "You know, there was a time when women knew their place and did as they were told," he spat as he seated himself again.

Elijah snorted. He was absolutely certain no such time had ever existed, and he had lived through many different times. "Sophia is perfectly capable of handling herself with respect to the opposite sex. In fact, as I recall, she was handling herself eighty years before you were born." Sophia's calm and self-possession were two of the qualities that had made her stand out from amongst her peers at the expensive and highly exclusive French pleasure-house where Elijah had found her. Two qualities that had eventually led him to turn her.

"Chill, Romeo," Damon told him. "And show some respect: that's good whiskey, not a 'whine' cooler. How long have you been with this chick, anyway?"

"A hundred and eighty years. Since she turned me."

Damon let out a low whistle. "No wonder. Wait, you're not saying you've been monogamous this whole time, right?"

"Yes, we have." His expression turned dark. "Or at least_ I_ have."

"I don't understand; if you've been together for so long, why would you worry about some jerk in a bar?" Stefan asked.

Marcus looked like he was about to bolt his drink, but after a sidelong glance at Damon, he took a discreet sip instead. "I think I'm losing her," he admitted morosely.

"A hundred and eighty years is a pretty good run. Don't you think it's time?" Damon asked.

"No, I don't think it's _time_! I turned so I could be with her forever. If it's not forever, what was the point?"

Elijah stood, straightening his jacket as he did so, and fishing his keys out of his pocket. "'Forever,' when applied to love, is a concept meaningful only to those for whom there is zero possibility of it. The rest of us would do well to simply appreciate what we have, while we have it." Seeing himself out, he planned to go and do just that.


	13. Chapter 13

**Okay, all kidding aside, I need to level with y'all. I started this story with a fairly solid outline in my head. At this point, though, the characters have taken that outline, crumpled it up, and tossed it out the window of a moving bullet train. It's causing MAJOR pacing problems, and I fear dropped plot threads may follow. I'm tempted to give it up as a lost cause, except that I'm a little bit curious as to just where the hell these people are leading me. Which is to say, I know this story has issues. My apologies for that. I hope some of you are curious as well to see where this is going to go.**

* * *

><p><em>Inside my skin, there is this space.<em>

_It twists and turns; it bleeds and aches._

_Inside my heart, there's an empty room._

_It's waiting for lightning, it's waiting for you._

_Muscle and sinew, velvet and stone,_

_This vessel is haunted – It creaks and moans._

_My bones call to you, in their separate skin._

_I make myself translucent, to let you in._

_For I am wanting,_

_And I am needing you_

_Here, inside the absence of fear._

Jewel, "Absence of Fear"

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

Jenna popped the last bite of her s'more into her mouth and licked the melted marshmallow from her fingers before pulling her hands under the blanket and leaning back against Elijah's bare chest. The night was crisp with autumn, but the fire in the outdoor fireplace was warm, and the bright, full moon overhead had made the balcony an awfully romantic place to be. Throw in the cozy fleece blanket, the s'mores, and the comfy chaise that they had just had superior sex on, and she couldn't think of anyplace in the world she would rather be.

Elijah was warm too, where she snuggled against him. He must have fed before she had gotten there. Which was probably just as well; she wasn't sure how often one should feed a vampire. Was it like donating blood, where you were supposed to wait 56 days in between? Someone really needed to write a manual for dating a vampire. _Everything You Want To Know About Your Undead Lover, But Were Afraid To Ask_.

With her mind meandering down that path, a thought occurred to her. "You fed me your blood last night." God, had it really only been _last night_? "Will that have any effect on… you know?"

"On the child?" Elijah stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, his arms wrapped over hers. "No. It will pass harmlessly through your system – it probably has already, actually – and out again. How did Jeremy and Elena take the news?"

"Better than I did," she said, rueful. "Elena didn't really say much. Jeremy was sorta 'WTF?' for a minute, but then I think he actually was getting a little bit into the idea of having a baby around. Which is weird." She turned onto her side, so she could see his face. "That _is_ weird, right?"

"Why would it be?"

Jenna shrugged. "I don't know... I guess I just figured teenage boys were allergic to babies or something. Of the two, I would have thought Elena would be more likely to be open to the idea."

Elijah pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Elena is a worrier. She's already no doubt worrying about the logistics of having an infant in the house, the midnight feedings, the diaper changes, the added vulnerability to the family that a small child brings, the additional responsibility, which preschool to enroll in... it's college fund..."

Jenna gave him a poke to the ribs. "Great. Now _I'm_ worrying about those things." He was probably right, though. Elena worried about everything. And now here she was, adding yet another wild card to the constant chaos of their lives. It probably didn't bode well for her parental instincts that she found dealing with vampires, werewolves and witches to be less terrifying than the prospect of one small infant. And what about Elijah? He hadn't really given her any indication of what _he_ thought about the whole mess. "Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to," she assured him hastily.

"Of course."

She took a moment to pick over her words, for once choosing them with care. "You said that you had five children, when you were…"

"Alive?"

She nodded. "How old were they when you turned?"

"The eldest was eleven; the youngest, two."

"Boys? Girls?"

"Yes," he answered, grinning impishly when she poked him in the ribs again. "Two boys, three girls."

"Was it very different, after you turned? How you felt about them?"

Elijah was silent for a while, and she thought perhaps he wouldn't answer at all. "No," he said at last. "It didn't change how I _felt_."

Jenna stroked her hand along his side. "How did you handle seeing them grow up and grow older, when you didn't age? Was it hard, or were you glad that you were able to be there and watch over them?"

"I didn't," he said, after a moment's hesitation. "See them grow up, I mean."

She saw his throat work, and regretted having asked him. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up."

He pulled her to him more tightly, resting his chin on her head. "No, it's all right." Taking her hand absently, he brought it to his lips and brushed a kiss over the backs of her fingers, then tucked it against his chest. "When someone turns, the transition can be… well, it can be devastating. Heightened emotions, lack of control over the bloodlust, the feeling of being a stranger inside your own skin… It's particularly difficult to be with the people whom you care about. I couldn't stay with them. I was afraid of what else I would do."

Sitting up, she tilted her head and asked him, "What _else_?"

He was quick to hide it, but the expression that flashed for a split second over his features hinted to her that he perhaps hadn't meant to say that much. "Nevermind," she told him. "You don't need to answer that." Jenna took her arms out of the blanket and started boxing up the graham crackers and marshmallows, intending to run everything in to the kitchen. _God, Jenna. Insensitive much? When it comes to killing a mood, you are Jack the Fucking Ripper._ "I'm sorry," she told him, standing to gather the food.

"No, don't be. Come here," he told her, pulling her back under the blanket and settling her onto his lap. "I've had over a millenium to come to terms with what I did. It doesn't cripple me anymore, or define who I am. I've learned to shoulder it." He tucked her hair back, where the soft breeze had blown a tendril of it across her face. "I just don't normally talk about it. In fact, I think I've only ever told one other person."

"It's okay. You don't have to – "

"Shh." He laid a finger gently over her lips. "I know I don't. But for some reason, I find I wish to."

Looking into his eyes, Jenna found herself nodding slowly, praying that she had the strength to hear what he was about to tell her. Cold, from more than just the night air, she pulled the blanket tighter and wrapped it around the two of them. "Okay."

He paused for a moment, perhaps not certain of where to begin. "The ritual that changed us took place on the eve of battle, so the bloodlust that came with it had a natural outlet at first. I'm not certain we truly gave it much thought while we were engaged in war. It wasn't until afterward, when the battle was done, that it became evident that our basic natures had changed, had taken on this new, darker dimension.

"By the time I returned to my home, I knew that I had this thing inside me, and I feared what would happen if it took control – and it often did, in those early days. So to keep it from my family, I absented myself from the household as much as I could. But I only got away with that for so long. Leah, my wife... she wasn't a woman to be ignored. She made it plain that she wouldn't tolerate my continued absence and, for a time, I thought perhaps she could help me bring it under control."

"But she couldn't," Jenna murmured.

"No." He grew quiet, staring into the fire, though she suspected he wasn't really seeing the fire at all, but rather something that had occurred over a thousand years ago, and remained with him still. "One day," he said, after a time, "Henry, my eldest, did something to anger me... I don't even recall what. I could feel the control slipping away from me, and I wanted to... well, I'm sure you can figure out what I wanted to do. Leah came upon us and, when she saw what I was about, she clubbed me with something. Not enough to do any damage, of course, but enough to divert my attention from my son. She told him to run and interposed herself between us."

With a pit opening in the bottom of her stomach, Jenna could see where this was going. She didn't want to hear it. Well, no, that wasn't exactly right; it wasn't that she wanted to deny it. It wasn't about her experience of the story. She didn't want _him_ to have to say it. She was making him relive this horrible _thing_ with her stupid questions, and she was sorry – so sorry. "Elijah –"

"Hush," he repeated, shaking his head. "Let's finish it." He settled his arms around her waist and pulled her more firmly against him. "Leah tried to talk me down, to reason with me, but there was too little reason left at that point. Her attempts to fight me off were ineffectual, to say the least. She might have run; if she had, perhaps some small shred of control would have kept me from pursuing, but I think she feared that, if she did, I would go after the children." Elijah caught her gaze and held it. "So she stood her ground. And I killed her. Her, and the child she carried."

"Oh..." Jenna covered her mouth with her hand, wanting to say something – anything! – that wouldn't be inane and wholly inadequate, and unable to imagine what it could possibly be. A tear ran down each cheek, making her feel stupid and ridiculous. It was his memory, his pain. Not hers. Pinching her lips together, she did the only thing she could think to do: she put her arms around his shoulders and simply held onto him. Sitting on his lap as she was, she was slightly higher than him, and she held his head to her shoulder, her fingers stroking the back of his hair. His body slightly tense at first, she felt him gradually relax against her as she sat and stroked, trying to give him whatever comfort he would take.

He eased her back, after a time, taking her chin in his fingers.. "I've made my peace, Jenna. I'm not haunted by it; it is what it is. I just... found I wanted to share it with you."

Jenna drew in a shaky breath. "Thank you. For trusting me enough to tell me."

Elijah gave her a small smile and slid his hand down her back. "Do you want to go inside?"

"No." Taking his face in her hands, she pressed a kiss to his lips, soft and warm and chaste. Twisted from being sideways on his lap, Jenna resettled herself so that she was straddling him and faced him head-on, pulling back to just gaze at him for a bit, her fingers brushing the hair back from his temples. Elijah quirked a brow at her, his expression quizzical.

She wished she could explain to him what she was feeling, but words failed, as they so often did. So she kissed him again, more deeply. Teasing his lips with her tongue, she darted it into his mouth as it opened under hers, and he kneaded her hips as he stirred again between them. As she leaned back to adjust her position, the blanket slid a little way down her shoulders, and the crisp air tightened her nipples almost painfully as it whispered across her skin. Folding her legs into a lotus position around him, she pulled the blanket back up, enclosing them in a cocoon of warmth as she took him inside her, into her own warmth.

Jenna didn't know if this was supposed to be tantric or _Kama Sutran_ or what; she just wanted to be close to him. The night before, as well as their earlier tryst this evening, had been all lust and fireworks. This was intimacy. No gymnastics, no one-upsmanship. A slow rocking, deep kisses, heart pressed to heart as they embraced. It lasted forever, or maybe time just stilled – she didn't know. She just knew that she wanted to _give _him something. They moved, as slow and steady and inexorable as the tides, and when they crested together, she looked into his eyes, and knew she was lost to him.

Later, when she lay in bed with him, drifting off to sleep, she wondered why she wasn't afraid of him. Part of her, albeit a small part, warned that she should by all rights be terrified of this vampire who had lived for over a millenium, who had done God only knew what over that time, who had by his own admission slaughtered his own wife and unborn child. Just as she should be terrified that she was falling deeply and profoundly in love with him.

But somehow, she wasn't.

* * *

><p>Sore in <em>all<em> the right places from a vigorous round of morning sex, Jenna peeled herself out of bed while Elijah showered and, buttoning his discarded shirt around her, padded down the hall to the other bathroom, humming to herself. The essentials taken care of, she headed to the kitchen to see what she could scare up for food. Culinary ineptitude notwithstanding, even she couldn't screw up breakfast too badly. Rolling the long sleeves up and out of the way, she inhaled deeply of the shirt's collar, breathing in Elijah's scent.

_Oh girl, you are so in trouble. You have got it _bad.

Well, she wouldn't think about that. Just like she wasn't going to think about Alaric, and how despite her protests, her conscience prickled at the idea of not telling him about the baby. Though why should she? It sure as hell wasn't as if he hadn't kept plenty of things from her. She didn't owe him anything.

_That's a little bit different,_ her conscience chided. _He was trying to protect you._

Elijah was protective of her as well, but he didn't lie to her to do it. He respected her enough to tell her the truth, trusting that she could handle it, even when she herself wasn't sure about her ability to do so.

_Tell you the truth, then lock you up so you couldn't do anything about it._

'That was different,' she silently mocked. He had done that to keep her from being harmed, and had protected Jeremy and Elena as he'd promised he would.

_Alaric loves you. And he deserves to know he has a child._

"I don't care!" Great. Now she was talking to herself. To busy herself, she found the coffee filters, measured out the grounds, and started a pot of coffee. She would be like Scarlett O'Hara – she'd think about it tomorrow. And when tomorrow came, she'd put it off until the next tomorrow, and so on.

Pulling open the fridge, Jenna found that Elijah had done some grocery shopping. She took out a carton of eggs, cheese, cream, tomatoes, and some... long, skinny, green, vegetable-looking thingies that she was going to hope were: a) scallions; and b) something that went well with eggs. She poked through cabinets until she came up with a cutting board and a frying pan, then pulled a knife out of the block and chopped the tomatoes and the thingies. While the pan warmed, she cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked them with some milk. She debated making an omelet, but that seemed tricky. Perhaps she'd stick with scrambling the eggs with the other ingredients rather than trying to be fancy.

Once she'd gotten that going, she opened the fridge again to see what else she could come up with. She spotted a package of strawberries; she could serve those with cream, maybe a little brown sugar if she could find any. There were a couple of pears... toward the back there was a plastic grocery bag. Wondering what was in there, she pulled it out and set it on the counter, leaving it momentarily to give the eggs a stir. That done, Jenna unwrapped the top of the bag from around the contents and peered in. She couldn't really tell what it was. Some kind of meat? If so, it looked like it had already been cooked. Reaching in, she pulled it out for a better look.

And screamed as she dropped it to the floor.

Elijah appeared around the corner almost at once, shirtless but dressed in slacks. "What is it?" he asked, glancing down when Jenna pointed in horror at the thing on the floor.

"Is that... It's a... Why do you... Oh God!" She ran for the bathroom, afraid she was going to be sick. She leaned against the sink, taking deep breaths, and gagged once or twice, but she managed to fight it down. Remembering that she had touched the thing, she scrubbed her hands under the hot water until they turned red and started to feel parboiled. She sank down on the edge of the tub as she dried her hands, hoping fervently that it would be gone when she went back out to the kitchen. So much for making breakfast.

She heard Elijah walk down the hallway and pause outside the door. "Are you all right?"

Sighing, she stood up and opened the door. "Yeah. I think so. Is it gone?"

"I took care of it, yes."

"Elijah, what the _fuck?"_

"I can explain."

"Please! Explain."

Elijah took a step back and held a hand out, motioning her down the hall. Crossing her arms, Jenna stepped out and went back to the kitchen. Thankfully, there was no sign of the bag or of what had been in it. He had rescued the fry pan from the stove. The egg scramble looked respectable, even if she didn't feel like eating it now. She pulled one of the barstools out and sat.

Pouring coffee, Elijah added cream to one and set it in front of her before leaning back against the counter. "I asked Damon and Marcus to keep an eye out for any unfamiliar vampires who might show up here in town. One appeared, and they... took him into custody. That's why I was at the Salvatores' yesterday."

"Into custody?" Jenna took an experimental sip of coffee, and decided she was good to go.

"Anyone showing up randomly right now is likely to be a spy for someone else, so yes, into custody. When I questioned this particular vampire, he had been compelled to resist subsequent compulsion. He had a suicide capsule inserted into one of his molars."

"Like a cyanide capsule that spies in the movies have?"

"Same idea. Whatever was used was highly effective. I want to have the residue examined to see what the substance was. Hence..." He made a hand gesture to indicate the _thing_.

She supposed it made a certain sense, when he explained it that way. Which should probably indicate to her just how far off the rails her life had gone. "Did you find out anything from him?"

Elijah slipped a couple of plates out of the cupboard. "Not really. But the fact that he was here, and so clearly equipped for espionage, tells me something in and of itself. The others are mobilizing. Whether for good or for ill remains to be seen."

"Was it the one you were talking about, do you think? Sebastian."

"Doubtful." He pushed some of the eggs out onto a plate and sampled a bite, an expression of surprised approval on his face. "This is quite good."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." He held the other plate up to her, questioningly.

She hesitated, then nodded. "So there's someone else after you now?" she asked, taking the plate when he handed it to her.

"Mmm... probably more like performing reconnaisance."

"All right. New rule: No nasty human-slash-humanoid body parts in the fridge without suitable warning given. Deal?"

"Deal." He leaned on the island, a mischievous look on his face. "Nice shirt. What's under it?"

"Uh-uh, mister. I am going to eat breakfast, then I'm going to take a shower, then I'm going home to work on my abstract."

Elijah stalked around the island and slipped his hands around her waist, sliding a couple of fingers in between the buttons. "I can think of other things to do today..."

"Behave! Don't you have papers to grade, or something?"

"Mm-hmm," he hummed, pressing his lips to her neck.

She giggled. "I mean it. We are not spending the entire day in bed."

Flicking a button open with his thumb, he slipped a hand inside the shirt and cupped her breast. "It wouldn't have to be in bed. We could mix it up. Try the counter, the table..."

His phone buzzed, vibrating against the ceramic bowl that held his car keys. Sighing, he slid his hand out of the shirt and went to answer it. Jenna took advantage of the reprieve to retreat to the bedroom and into the shower, half fearing, half hoping that Elijah would join her in it. He didn't though. When she had finished and dressed, she found him in the living room, fully clothed, his expression unreadable. "Everything okay?"

"No." He looked grim.

Her stomach filling with dread, Jenna wondered what new emergency had come up. "What is it?"

"It's Sophia. She was bitten by a werewolf last night."


	14. Chapter 14

**Writing this scene while having rampant, mutant, ninja PMS was _not_ a good idea. Memo to self: add tissues to the shopping list. Also, vampire fiction is awesome to write when you are a history geek.**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER FOURTEEN<strong>

_Paris, France – 1751_

Elijah shook his head in amused exasperation as Klaus drifted upstairs with five of the ladies at Madame Genevieve's. Klaus's excesses were guaranteed to keep him, and by extension Elijah, there at the Parisian pleasure house well into the morning hours. Which meant that he would need to send the rest of the men back to the townhouse before them so as to avoid the sunlight. Which in turn meant that Elijah was destined to spend several hours with no company save the Madame's girls, and he expected little in the way of conversation with any of their ranks. Not that he couldn't avail himself of the hospitality and pass the time _not_ talking, but he generally found that the feigned arousal and disingenuous satisfaction of such creatures left him more lonely for companionship, not less.

So, with the men dispatched, Elijah found himself a drink and settled into one of the high-backed chairs before the marble fireplace, slipping a book out of his doublet. He was in the habit of carrying a volume with him, the better to amuse himself while Klaus made merry. Tonight's treatise was a recent work by one Denis Diderot, a little work entitled _Lettre sur les aveugles à l'usage de ceux qui voient_. It had landed the French man of letters briefly in Vincennes Prison, though he had since regained his freedom, and Elijah found himself curious to see what the fuss was about. The backward-thinking, dual-edged sword of monarchy and church that fought against all advancement of knowledge and enlightenment continued to both amaze and appall him. Still, men such as this Diderot and his compatriots continued to push at intellectual and moral boundaries, and water, once spilled on the ground to nourish its growth, could not be put back into the pitcher.

He was perhaps a third through the book when the rustle of petticoats signaled the approach of one of Genevieve's ladies. Prepared to brush off the usual come-on, Elijah was surprised when she remarked, over his shoulder, "You're reading Denis's work, I see. His thoughts are intriguing, no?"

Elijah turned in his chair to see who addressed him. The girl was petite, with lustrous, dark curls, olive skin, and a trim, tidy figure. Her eyes were large and dark, and showed a lively intelligence he didn't often see in women of her station. To be sure, the girls at Genevieve's were typically more educated than their lower-class counterparts, rutting in the gutters of the Parisian streets, but it was rare to find one who was educated beyond the basics. This girl was likely some aristocrat's by-blow, orphaned before she could be married off in some backroom gentlemen's arrangement.

"Indeed," he answered, rising and gesturing her toward the other chair. "Do you know of it?"

"I do, my lord." The girl sat, smoothing her skirts and folding her hands into her lap demurely. "I found his discussion of perception shaping reality to be quite illuminating."

So she _had_ read it. "Are you in agreement with his assertions, then?" he asked, reseating himself.

"As a philosophical paradigm, I believe the idea to have merit," she said, watching the flames dance over the hearth as she considered. "Brought down to the mundane level, however, one cannot define reality solely by one's own perception, to the exclusion of others'. Else, we would never agree upon anything."

"One might argue that we rarely do agree." He smiled at her, encouraging the discussion.

"That is true. But as the five senses must work in concert to define our perceptions, so too must the experience of being in the world be shaped together by the minds of men."

"And of women."

She smiled back at him, a genuine smile. "And of women," she agreed. She nodded toward the book, which he had put aside. "You would have heard, of course, of Monsieur Diderot's most recent literary undertaking; his passion for philosophical discourse has not been dulled by his recent misfortunes, nor has his voice been silenced."

"One must make noise if one is to be heard." One of the serving girls came and discreetly refilled his drink. "It is uncommon to find a woman so well-read in such an establishment," he said, when she had gone.

"As uncommon as it is to find man reading therein, I dare say," she returned, one delicate brow arched eloquently.

"Touche," he allowed, smiling. "Might I have the privilege of your name, mademoiselle?"

"Of only my name?"

She _was _beautiful. Also bright, and articulate. He could perhaps be charmed by this one. "To begin with," he decided.

"I am Sophia, my lord."

* * *

><p>"Watch out!" Jenna's warning snapped Elijah's attention out of his reverie and back into the present. He swerved to avoid the deer in the road, narrowly missing two of its kindred who had joined it in its roadside folly. The Rover wanted to fishtail, but he quickly brought it back under control. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jenna pull her fingernails out of the armrest and rub circulation back into her hands.<p>

Privately, he hadn't really wanted Jenna to accompany him on this trip, if the truth be known, but she had insisted. Though she had only known the vampire for a month – and her sole relationship with her had been that of jailer and captive – Jenna had nevertheless come to like Sophia and evidently considered her to be somewhere in the realm of 'friend.' Once Elijah had described the inevitable outcome of the situation, Jenna wouldn't be talked out of visiting. Not, he supposed, that it should surprise him. Jenna so blatantly wore her heart on her sleeve, and she was quick to extend her liking and friendship.

And her love.

Elijah squirmed inwardly. The last thing he had intended was for Jenna to fall in love with him, as she so clearly was doing. The fact that he should have foreseen that outcome did nothing to improve his mood or assuage his guilt at having allowed it to happen. It was a complication that he could well do without right now, honestly, and he could see no graceful way to extricate himself from the situation.

_Are you sure you want to? You did tell her about Leah. _The inner squirming intensified. What on earth had compelled him to talk about that? He had only ever spoken of it to Irina, and then only after she had been with him for well over a year. Then again, Jenna being pregnant did lend a certain immediacy to that particular topic that hadn't pertained to Irina.

"Is it really so hopeless?" Jenna broke in, her voice subdued.

"Sophia? Yes, I'm afraid so. There is no cure for a werewolf bite."

"Not even if she fed from an Original? I mean, you guys are immune, right?"

"We are, but that immunity doesn't transfer. For a normal vampire, a werewolf bite is a death sentence."

Jenna reached over and put her hand on his leg. "I'm sorry."

"So am I," he murmured. Sorry he had pulled Sophia and Marcus into this whole mess. This was his fight, not theirs.

"How...long have you known her?"

"Long enough." Elijah slowed and pulled into the Salvatore driveway; Damon and Marcus had brought Sophia there after her call had alerted them as to what had happened. Parking in front of the garage, he got out of the vehicle and went around to the passenger side. Jenna had already slid out before he could open the door for her, and she tucked her hand into his as they walked to the entryway. Elijah pulled his away to knock on the door when they reached the entryway.

Damon answered quickly. Elijah raised on eyebrow inquiringly. _How bad?_ Damon shook his head. _ Bad enough._ Elijah glanced away, nodding acknowledgment of the point. He stepped into the foyer as Damon moved back, Jenna bringing up the rear. Elijah could hear Sophia and Marcus talking in low voices in the great room and, squaring his shoulders, he made his way in.

The conversation stopped as he cleared the archway, Marcus turning to look at him from where he sat, side-saddle on the edge of the sofa upon which Sophia reclined, his expression half-accusatory, half mad hope that the Original could do something – anything – to make this awful thing not be true. Sophia met Elijah's eyes and tried to sit up, only to be pressed back down by Marcus's hand on her chest. "It's all right," Elijah told her. "Lie still."

Sophia took Marcus's hand in her own, and moved it away from her, pushing herself up so she sat, her back against the arm of the couch. "I'm not dead yet," she told him mildly. Laying her other arm on the back of the sofa, she held the hand palm up to him. "Elijah." Her eyes were clear and calm. She understood the truth, even if Marcus didn't want to accept it.

Elijah crossed the room and took it, raising it to his lips. "Sophia."

Looking past him, she noticed Jenna standing uncertainly in the archway. "Hello, Jenna. It's good to see you again. I wish it could be under more pleasant circumstances."

"Hi," Jenna said, moving awkwardly into the room to perch on the edge of one of the chairs facing the sofa. "I'm so sorry," she told her. "As inadequate as it sounds, is there anything we can do?"

"Perhaps you could make some tea?" she suggested.

"Yeah, of course." Jenna stood, brushing her hand along Elijah's arm on her way toward the kitchen.

Sophia turned to Marcus. "Would you go into town and pick up some of that wine that I like, love?"

"What? No, I'm not leaving you," he refused, his mouth settling into a stubborn line.

"Please," she said, giving him The Look when he would have protested further. "I would like to enjoy it once more, while I still may. And I would speak with Elijah."

Marcus hesitated, at war with himself, and when he did rise to leave the look he shot at Elijah was just shy of mutinous, but he finally went. Elijah pulled the ottoman over next to the sofa as Marcus stormed off into the hall and out the front door. He sat, facing her. "Let's see it," he told her.

Wincing, Sophia pulled her shirt up to expose an ugly wound on her stomach, a wound that roiled under the surface as the black, tainted blood sluiced through her veins, slowly poisoning her. Judging by the size of it, Elijah thought the wolf must have had her by the waist, full in its jaws. "Tell me," he said grimly, as she lowered the hem of her shirt.

"You know I overheard the professor say something of a meeting he needed to attend. I followed him, away from campus. I assumed he would meet with someone in town, but he went in the other direction, toward the old quarries," she told him, leaning back gingerly and letting her head rest against the back of the sofa. "Once he stopped, I continued on in the car and parked where he wouldn't hear me, doubling back on foot. I didn't realize at the time, of course, that he could smell and hear me coming anyhow." Sophia laid her hand in his palm. "When I drew close enough to the quarry to see them, one jumped me from behind. This wasn't a meeting of conspirators, Elijah. It was a pack gathering."

Elijah digested that bit of news. Of all the possibilities regarding the professor, that was one he had failed to consider, focused as he was on the other Originals and any impending challenges that might come from those quarters. In hindsight, it seemed so obvious. Jenna had told him that Mitchell's questions focused primarily on the werewolf mythologies she had outlined, as well as on the Sun and Moon curse. It also explained the professor's odd behavior at the meet and greet. Werewolves could sense vampires; unfortunately that ability didn't hold true in reverse.

"A pack," he repeated. "How many?"

"I counted at least five, though there may have been more in the woods. When I realized they were transforming, I tried to retreat, but the one who caught me had mostly transitioned. The others shifted while I struggled with him. I killed two, maybe wounded a third before this," she said, glancing at her stomach to indicate the bite. "I thought they'd kill me then, but I think they wanted you to know. The professor mentioned the 'big vampire in town' earlier. Since they failed to kill you with the bombing, perhaps he thought to send you a message."

Pale, Sophia sank down a little lower onto the sofa. Elijah tucked an errant piece of hair back from her face. It clung to her skin a little; she was beginning to sweat. "I shouldn't have pulled you into this. I wouldn't have, if I had suspected." _If I had been paying attention, and not let myself get distracted by matters better left alone._ "I'm sorry."

"As am I." Her face tightened and collapsed as sudden tears filled her eyes. Careful not to disturb her wound, Elijah reached down and pulled her gently to him.

She clung to him for only a moment, breathing deeply to still the threatening sobs. "I can't do this," she told him, wiping a hand over her face as she struggled to regain control. "Marcus. I have to be strong for him."

Elijah settled her head more firmly against his shoulder, loosening her hair where it was gathered in a loose knot at her nape, and brushing his fingers through it. "Marcus isn't here right now," he whispered to her. "You needn't be strong for me."

He felt her yield a little, letting him draw her against him. Her small frame shook with sobs she refused to release, to give voice to, as she put her arms around his waist. Saying nothing – _what was there to say? – _he held her to him and let her cry, realizing as he did that it was the only time he had ever seen her do so, though he had spent much of her first 80 years as a vampire in her company, after he had turned her. And before they'd met Marcus.

"Do you remember, how we found him?" she asked, as though reading his thoughts.

He nodded, kissing the top of her head. "Yes, I do."

* * *

><p><em>Manhattan, 1834<em>

The night air was heavy, and pregnant with the promise of the summer soon to be, balmy even at a half past midnight. They had spent an evening at the newly opened Niblo's Garden on Broadway and Prince, opting to walk back to the elaborate Greek Revival home that he had purchased on the trendy Bond Street. They had stopped for a quick 'bite' on the way home, and Elijah had definite ideas about how he wanted to spend the rest of the hours until sun-up.

"How long do we have before Klaus arrives in New York?" Sophia asked him, bending to purloin a brightly colored flower from a pot of them that someone had set out on the stoop.

"A week, perhaps a fortnight before his ship arrives." Slipping the stem from her fingers, he tucked it into one of the combs holding her hair back from her delicate face. Not that that exquisite face required any additional ornamentation. Oh yes, he had _very_ definite ideas.

Sophia slipped her hand through his arm and continued walking. "What did you think of the entertainment this evening?"

He shrugged. "The music was good, and well-received. The poetry readings, rather hit or miss."

"Agreed. Though there was the one fellow..."

"You wouldn't happen to be referring to the young – emphasis on _young_ – man who all but prostrated himself before you during his recitation." Her silence was eloquent. "You are!" he laughed. "What was it that he was butchering, a sonnet?"

"I thought he was sweet," she bristled.

Elijah leaned down so his lips were close to her ear, brushing it almost. "Perhaps you can sample his blood tomorrow evening, and know for certain. If they'll have him back, which is admittedly a gamble." He moved his hands to her waist, intending to pull her to him for a smoldering kiss, but the ringing clatter of hooves on the paver stones, followed by a loud thud and the sound of shouts as window sashes along the street were thrown open, had Sophia moving toward the corner to see what all the mayhem was in aid of.

When they reached the intersection, a man lay in the street, groaning as the sound of hooves receded. As they neared him, Elijah could see a wheel track across the youth's chest from where the carriage had run over him. Closer inspection revealed several hoof prints as well. One arm was twisted at an impossible angle and looked to be crushed just below the elbow. Blood flowed freely from his mouth, where his head was turned to the side; heavy internal bleeding, by the looks. Likely a crushed lung and shattered ribs.

Sophia knelt next to him, her back to the windows from which the awake and the curious looked on. Blocking their view, she extended her fangs and bit into her own wrist, sliding her other hand under the youth's head to turn it upright so she could feed him. Elijah heard her gasp, and looked more closely – the same young man whom they had just been discussing, Sophia's hapless poet – was the man now dying in the street.

* * *

><p>"I don't think we had even reached the house before you were ridiculously besotted," Elijah smiled into her hair.<p>

"We both were, he and I." Sophia pushed away from him, brushing the tears from her cheeks. "I need to ask you for something, Elijah. Two things, actually."

"All right."

"Take care of him, this next little while? He'll need it."

Elijah nodded, though privately he thought the chances of Marcus allowing him to do so were slim to none at the moment. "And the second?"

Sophia drew in a shaky breath, released it. "When the time comes..." Two more tears coursed down her cheeks, and she batted them away impatiently. "When the time comes, I want you to do it. Please don't let him be the one. It would kill him..." She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the sob. "Please."

He pulled her to him again. "You have my word."

"Thank you." She let him hold her until she was once again composed, pulling away only when she was in command of her voice and her emotions once again. "It was worth it, you know. Loving him. You should try it."

"I don't think Marcus is precisely my type."

"Don't be obtuse," she chided him, glancing meaningfully in the direction of the kitchen. "You know what I mean."

He did know. And if the present circumstance wasn't a _perfect_ example of why it was unwise in the extreme to fall in love, he couldn't imagine a better one. "I'll take it under advisement."

Hearing footsteps and the rattle of teacups against saucers coming down the hall, Sophia sat back against the couch. Jenna came in with a tray complete with the cups, teapot, sugar bowl and creamer; setting it on the coffee table, she poured tea and milk into one of the cups and pressed it into Sophia's hands. Elijah left them to talk and made his way out onto the terrace, wanting nothing so much as to commit an encore performance of the mass destruction he had leveled there a few weeks prior. But he would save that, for a more opportune time.

For starters, he had a pack of werewolves to kill. He planned to enjoy that, and to make it as drawn-out and painful as possible. Then there was the matter of the other Originals. Perhaps Hilda had been right; perhaps he should call a conclave, gather everyone together to hash over matters, air grievances, come up with a plan to address certain situations that Klaus had refused to deal with.

He would do so, he decided. Plan it around the long weekend built into the school schedule that he had rather ridiculously committed himself to, a schedule now rife with meetings and parent-teacher conferences, and the faire that Caroline had asked him to oversee. What had he been thinking, involving himself in all of this when there were far more pressing matters that required his attention? Clearly, he _hadn't_ been thinking. Or rather, he had been – about Jenna. About staying in town to pursue her. Remaining to watch over the doppelganger had been a consideration, for sure, but if he were to be honest with himself then he needed to own that she had been the primary factor in his decision-making.

And where had that gotten him?

Walking around the side of the house, he let himself in through the kitchen door, taking the back stairway to the second floor, and down to Damon's room. The door was open; Damon lounged inside, tumbler in one hand, the remote control to the large, flat-screen TV in the other. Elijah leaned against the door frame. "We need to talk."

Damon emptied the tumbler in one smooth swallow. "About?" he asked, not turning to look at him.

"Alaric Saltzman."


	15. Chapter 15

**O Hai! Surprise, I finally got through this #$%ing chapter. It will hopefully serve as a course correction and get things back on track here, if only the characters will behave. Jenna, I'm looking at **_**you**_**. o_o**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER FIFTEEN<strong>

"Wait. Your faculty advisor is a _werewolf_?" Elena repeated, pausing in the middle of pouring her morning coffee.

"Yep." Jenna pushed scrambled eggs around her plate. They had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now her stomach seemed set to rebel against breakfast, perhaps just on principle.

"Was he the one who attacked Elijah's friend?"

"Sophia, yeah. We're not sure if he was the one or not. There were apparently a few of them. But she was bitten. Which is apparently a No Good, Very Bad thing for vampires."

"Yeah, it is. I've seen what happens to a vampire who is dying of a werewolf bite. Not pretty."

"Wait, when did you see… No, you know what? Nevermind. I probably don't want to know." Elena added some cream to her coffee and slid onto the stool next to Jenna. "Eggs?" Jenna said, sliding her plate toward her niece. "I thought I wanted breakfast, but junior vetoed the idea."

Elena shook her head and gestured toward her coffee. "I'm good with this. I take it you slept here last night?" she asked, indicating the pajamas Jenna was still wearing.

"Elijah was going to be up all night grading papers." Or so he had said. Jenna privately had her doubts that that was the only reason he hadn't wanted her to stay.

"You usually have an early start on Mondays. Are you staying home today?"

"Given the situation, Elijah thought it would be wise for me to stay here." It didn't sit entirely well with her to give in on that point; it reeked of running away, with an undertone of being told what to do. She had wanted to argue, but he had looked so wretched when they left the Salvatore house that she had capitulated and agreed to stay away from campus until he could "deal with" the professor.

"You mean the bombing… did he have something to do with that?"

"We don't know for sure, but it seems like a good possibility. Elijah says that it's not a tactic another vampire is likely to use."

"Unless… what if the werewolves are working for one of them?"

Jenna frowned. "Don't the two species hate each other? Why would they agree to work for a vampire?"

"They might not have had a choice."

Great. Something else to worry about. "Whatever the case, if I'm stuck at home then I have no excuse not to be working on my abstract."

"True." Elena gave her a sidelong look as she sipped her coffee. "And you could always take a break, maybe give Alaric a call," she suggested, oh-so-nonchalantly.

"Don't start, Elena."

"Look, I know it's not really any of my business – "

"No, it isn't."

"But don't you think he deserves to know about the baby?"

"I don't give a shit what he 'deserves.' I don't want to tell him. I don't even want to talk to him."

"Because of Elijah?"

"No, because Ric is a lying son of a bitch who has zero respect for me."

Elena set her mug down and turned so she was facing Jenna. "That's not true, Aunt Jenna."

"Yes, it is. And if you weren't trying to assuage your own guilt with that 'I was only trying to protect you' crap, you would understand that." Seeing Elena's stricken expression, Jenna bit her lip and relented. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm super pissy this morning."

"It's okay. Can I just say, from the perspective of someone who didn't know who her biological parents were until she was 17, that it sucks, and is exceedingly unfair to your kid to not know who its father is, especially when that father would be a totally awesome dad?"

"Just so we're clear, you're _not_ saying you think _John_ would have been an awesome dad, are you?"

"No! God, no. But Alaric? I think he'd be a great dad."

Jenna shifted uncomfortably. "You think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Even if I don't want to be with him?"

"I think you can still work something out about the baby, even if you aren't together as a couple anymore." Elena rose and rinsed her mug out in the sink, reaching into the fridge and tossing an orange and a carton of yogurt from the fridge into her backpack. "And for the record, I'm not thoroughly convinced that you don't want to be with him," she added, heading toward the door.

"I do not want to be with him!"

"The lady doth protest too much…"

"That will be enough Shakespeare, young lady! What are they teaching you in that school? When you bother to go, that is."

"Ric's number is in the address book on my desk," Elena said, by way of a parting shot.

Annoyed, Jenna filled the teakettle and put it on the stove as Elena's car pulled out of the driveway. Maybe some herbal tea would settle her stomach and calm her down enough to work on her abstract. She opened the cupboard to get the tea and pushed aside the sprig of wolfsbane Damon had given her before leaving the Salvatore House, 'just in case.'

Was she protesting too much? God, she didn't know. She had to admit that she did miss Alaric from time to time. It wasn't as though there hadn't been a time when she had thought it a possibility that she would marry him, have babies, the picket fence, etc. Being lied to, having secrets withheld… that hadn't been a part of the plan.

Elijah hadn't been part of the plan either. But if she hadn't already fallen for him, she was dangerously close to doing so. He was so much more… mature than anyone else she had dated. Which only stood to reason, considering. Was it wrong to want to be with someone who treated her with respect, who told her the truth and trusted her to handle it? Not that it was all her choice to make. How could she possibly be more than a passing fancy to him? She was nothing special, certainly not to a guy who was over a thousand years old, who had been with thousands of women. Beautiful, sophisticated women. Women like Sophia. _Jealous? Who, me?_

Jenna sighed deeply. This train of thought was not helping her mood any. Once the kettle started whistling, she took it off the stove and poured water over the teabag, carrying the mug with her into the dining room, or, as she had come to refer to it, her war room. Books and papers were piled on the table, leaving just a small space for her laptop and a beverage. She poked through a pile of notes while she waited for her laptop to boot up and her tea to steep. Toward the bottom, she found the sheaf of papers where she had outlined what she knew of the supernatural.

_This was all my fault_, she thought suddenly. If she hadn't been stupid and thought she could turn her humiliation at not having known what was going on under her own nose into some kind of workable thesis, then Mitchell would never have seen that she was onto something, would probably not have met Elijah, and would not have been tailed by Sophia, who had only been there at Elijah's behest. If she'd just left well enough alone, everything would have been fine. But no, she just had to try to be clever, to justify her own cluelessness at having ignored everything going on around her. Maybe that was the real reason Elijah hadn't wanted her to stay last night. Maybe he too had realized that she was to blame.

Disgusted, and angry with herself, Jenna took the stack of papers and, stomping into the next room, tossed them into the fireplace. Grabbing a few pieces of wood, and the box of long matches from the mantle, she lit the papers on fire and used them to kindle the wood. _That's about all they're good for_, she thought, bitter. She returned to the dining room, picking up her tea and sipping at it while she looked through the rest of her notes, discontent with them too.

A knock at the door pulled her attention away from the work she wasn't doing. With a glance at the alarm keypad to make sure it wasn't armed, she cracked the door open. "Suzanne?"

The normally bubbly redhead stood on the front porch, looking utterly dejected. She had clearly been crying; her eyes were red and had that glassy look. With her shoulders slumped forward, she looked like she had lost her last friend in the world, AND had her puppy run over. "Hey," she mumbled, her voice sounding thick. She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. And promptly burst into tears.

If she was putting on a performance, if she were some part of the Professor's werewolf cult or something as she and Elijah had debated, she was a damned good actress. Jenna went back and forth with herself about asking her to come in or sending her on her way, then decided to compromise. Stepping out onto the porch, pj's and all, Jenna pulled the door closed behind her and slid an arm around the girl's shoulders. She steered her toward the porch swing and eased her down onto it. "Okay, Sweetie. What's going on?" _And why are you _here?

Suzanne lifted her hands up, then sort of let them fall into her lap. "He dumped me. No, it's actually worse than that. He didn't even have the decency to tell me he was dumping me. He just stood me up and took off." She knuckled tears off of her cheeks, looking a lot younger than she was.

Jenna felt a jolt in her stomach. "Are you talking about Richard Mitchell?"

"You knew?" Suzanne asked, sniffling.

"It was kind of obvious," Jenna told her. She hoped to be able to leave it at that.

"We were supposed to spend the day together yesterday. We were going to go hiking around the lake, take a picnic… you know. And he never showed up. He didn't even call. God, I'm so stupid!" she sobbed.

So Mitchell hadn't been seen since the other night? Sophia had killed two werewolves. Could he have been one of them? "Are you sure you didn't just get your signals crossed? Did you try calling him?"

"All day. Then I went by his office this morning, and there was an announcement on his door from Dr. Lee, saying that he had left to go overseas and would not be returning for the foreseeable future, and she would be taking on his advisees. Not even a phone call to say goodbye."

"I'm going to make us some tea," Jenna said, giving her shoulder a squeeze as she got up. She put the kettle on the stove again when she back inside, mulling things over. She didn't think Suzanne was faking it – she wasn't really discreet enough to be that good a liar. But if Mitchell were indeed dead, who had passed along the information about him going 'overseas?' _Oh God, that means Professor Lee is my advisor now._ She somehow found the idea of the tiny professor _way_ scarier than a werewolf.

While she waited for the water, Jenna took out a package of cookies and put some on a plate, assembling everything onto a tray, including a box of tissues. When she got the tea, she grabbed the wolfsbane as well, figuring this counted as a 'just in case.' She crumpled some of the dried herb into one of the teacups. Once the water boiled, she poured it into the two teacups and went back out to the porch.

Suzanne was drying her eyes on the sleeves of her hooded sweatshirt. Jenna didn't think she had seen her in anything so casual and shape-concealing before. "Here, I found some cookies too. I figured some chocolate therapy might be in order," she said, handing Suzanne the cup with the wolfsbane in it.

Wrapping her hands around the cup for warmth, the redhead took a sip of the tea. "Mmm, this is good. What is it, blackberry?"

Jenna let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding when Suzanne took a bigger swallow of the tea. "Yeah, it's herbal."

Suzanne helped herself to a cookie. "I didn't think you ever drank anything but coffee."

"Usually, no. But my stomach has been touchy lately."

"You weren't feeling great last week either. Are you okay?" Surprisingly, she seemed genuinely concerned.

"Actually…" What the hell? She might as well get used to saying it. It would become obvious before too long anyhow. "I'm pregnant."

The redhead choked on the cookie she was eating, coughing and sputtering as she stared at Jenna, wide-eyed. "Holy shit!" she croaked out at last.

"Yeah, that's kind of what I said."

"Wow, that's… I… uh… Wow."

"Yeah."

Suzanne washed down the cookie with the rest of her tea. "Would it be really tacky and Maury Povich of me to ask who's the baby daddy?"

"Kinda. But it's Ric's."

"Oops."

"Mm."

"Does your current boyfriend know? He was hunky, by the way."

"Yes, he knows." _Before I did._ "I didn't think you got much of a look at him, the way you took off the other night."

Suzanne ducked her head down, looking sheepish, and maybe a little ashamed. "Richard and I were kind of in the middle of something before we got to the mixer. I was a little distracted. Then there was some kind of explosion in the parking lot or something, so I guess I'm glad I left early. Were you still there when that happened?"

"You could say that," she answered, not wanting to derail the conversation with an explanation of that debacle. "I could tell you two had been, erm, a little _busy _before you showed up," Jenna teased, making her blush. "So, how long were you two…" _Fucking?_ "Seeing each other?"

"Since the first of the summer semester, when I was working that clinical trial with him." She reached for another cookie. "Christ, I'm dumb. I should have realized, the first time he…" Suzanne broke off, obviously having said more than she intended to.

"The first time he what?"

"Nothing. It's nothing." She brushed the back of her hand over her eyes when fresh tears threatened, and blew out a breath. "Anyway… I thought you were supposed to be at the lab this morning. I checked there first, but they said you didn't show. Morning sickness?"

"Yeah," she answered, leaving it at that. "I'm never sure if things are going to stay where I put them."

"So what are you going to do? About your thesis and stuff? Can you get another extension?"

That was a goddamned good question, wasn't it? "I don't know. I'm not sure I even dare to ask Professor Lee," she said, shuddering at the thought. "Besides, it's got to be easier to work on a thesis while preggars than once I have an infant, right?" Oh God. She was going to have an _infant_. A tiny, helpless infant. A tiny, helpless infant who would be depending on her for literally _everything_…

"Are you okay?" Suzanne asked, looking concerned. "You just went really pale. Do you need to hurl?"

"No, I'm all right. Just had a little reality cramp, that's all."

The redhead stood, brushing cookie crumbs off of her ample chest. "I have a class in an hour; I should go. I'm sorry to just drop by out of the blue and have a freak-out on you."

"No, it's fine. Stop by any time," Jenna assured her, feeling a pang of guilt that the girl was leaving there thinking her boyfriend had left her without a second glance when he was, in fact, almost certainly dead. But it wasn't as though Jenna could tell her that.

"Are you coming to campus tomorrow?"

With Mitchell out of the way, there was no reason not to, was there? "Yeah. I should be there."

"Great. I'll see you then. Thanks for the tea and sympathy."

"Anytime."

Jenna watched her drive off, then carried the tray back inside. Retrieving her cell phone from the counter, she sent Elijah a text message: "MITCHELL 'OUT OF COUNTRY,' NOT COMING BACK. PROBABLY DEAD. SUZANNE NOT A WW, JUST SEEMINGLY JILTED GF." She doubted he'd check his messages until at least lunch, but perhaps it would be some small consolation to him. She pressed send, and noticed that she had a voice message. She listened to it while she put the leftover cookies away.

"Shit!" The message was from Carol, reminding her that they had a lunch meeting to go over last minute details for the shelter opening and dedication. Jenna glanced at the clock on the microwave. No time for a shower. She ran upstairs and threw on a blouse and the only clean pair of slacks she could find, noting as she strained to button them that they were suddenly a lot tighter than they had been. She went into Elena's room and stood in front of her full-length mirror, side-to. With her stomach straining at the waistband of the fitted slacks, she could see the beginning of a baby bump.

Jenna drifted backward until her legs came up against Elena's bed, and she folded herself down onto it as a second, harder reality cramp hit her. _Jesus_. This was real. She was pregnant. She was going to have a baby. Her baby. Hers – and Alaric's. Right now, inside of her body, she and he together were making a human. A _person_. Whether she wanted it or not (and she was pretty sure she didn't), he was, quite literally, a part of her now.

She didn't even realize she was crying until she heard her breath hitch on a sob. Taking a few deep breaths and damning her hormones, she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and stood, smoothing her blouse down over the slacks. She would have to leave it untucked. And do some laundry. And eventually go shopping for some – _gulp_ – maternity clothes. Jenna turned to leave Elena's room, and spotted the address book on her desk. She picked it up, running her hand over the cover for a moment before she sighed, and opened it to the S's. Grabbing a pen and notepad, she scribbled down the number that Elena had written in for Alaric.

Just in case.


	16. Chapter 16

**Surprise! Don't look now, but I think I'm getting back into the groove. At the very least, I'm having fun again. Something about envisioning Elijah sitting at a school cafeteria table just makes me giggle.**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER SIXTEEN<strong>

Sophia was dead.

Elijah had spent the last three nights at the Salvatore house to help care for her, had in fact spent nearly all of his time when not at school there. When he had arrived after yesterday's classes had finished up, it was clear that it was time. Though both he and Sophia had done all that they could to prepare Marcus for the inevitable, when the time came it had taken both Stefan and Damon to drag him from the house while Elijah did what needed to be done. The last thing that he, or anyone, could do for her.

While his first period class sweated their way through the pop quiz he had thrown at them, Elijah texted Jenna to let her know that Sophia was gone. He hadn't seen Jenna since Sunday, when he had sent her home so he could grade papers and berate himself in private for putting Sophia in the situation that had ultimately killed her. He'd spoken with her briefly, when she'd called to say she was returning to campus on Tuesday, as Mitchell was no longer in the picture. He had argued that there were others of his pack out there still, but she had gone back to class anyway. Privately, he continued to harbor misgivings about the professor's student paramour, but Jenna had seemed convinced that the girl was just collateral damage.

He glanced down at his phone as the screen lit up. A text back from Jenna: "_So sorry. Come over here after school today?" _Elijah slid out the phone's keyboard. "_Committee meeting, then parent-teacher conferences."_ Her response was quick. "_Shit! Forgot. Guess I'll see you there. Miss you."_

Elijah dropped the phone into his pocket and checked the clock. "Time's up. Pass your papers forward."

* * *

><p>Caroline was already in the cafeteria, laying out packets of notes and photos on the designated table, when Elijah arrived there at the end of the school day, in advance of the rest of the committee. She set the stack down as he approached the table and, much to his surprise, threw her arms around him. "Uh…"<p>

"Stefan told me. I'm so sorry! Are you okay? You shouldn't have to be here today. You don't need to stay if you don't want to, I can run the meeting and bring you up to speed later."

"No, that's – "

"She was so nice and I can't believe this. It's not fair!"

Elijah put his hands on her waist to try and disengage her. "Things rarely are. Let's – "

"Well well. Look who's teacher's pet," Katerina said, sauntering into the cafeteria from the hallway.

Caroline let go of him to glare at Katerina. "Katherine. Don't you have a quarterback's throat to go stick your tongue down or something?"

Katerina held up one of the flyers with which Caroline had peppered the school bulletin boards. "You called for volunteers, didn't you? I'm volunteering."

The blond crossed her arms tightly in front of her. "_Why_ would you do that_?_"

"Why not? I'm blending. And extracurricular activities will look good on my transcript, right?"

"I don't think your idea of _extracurriculars_ generally show up on a transcript, Katherine. Leave." She turned toward Elijah. "Make her leave!"

Katerina ignored her, brushing past her to pick up one of the packets Caroline had left on the table. "Hmm. Ambitious. Aren't you just the little go-getter?"

"Katerina…" Elijah warned, voice soft, but menace clear.

"_Relax_. I want to help. Besides, I may have just a little expertise to offer, you know." She slipped seamlessly into bubbly teenager mode as Matt Donovan entered the cafeteria. "Matt! Over here. I'm so glad you got the afternoon shift off so you could be here." She laced her arm through his as he drew near. "You are going to be so hot in period clothes," she purred, practically rubbing herself against him like her feline namesake. "…and with a great, big sword."

Donovan blushed. "I don't know about this, Kat," he said, glancing between her and Caroline, and looking embarrassed.

"Trust me, you'll be great. My knight in shining armor."

"I'm gonna barf," Caroline mumbled. "Can't you do anything?" she asked Elijah, _sotto voce_.

Apparently, he couldn't. Various students started filing in, including Elena, Jeremy, Tyler and Stefan, the last of whom appeared to be there under duress. The four of them paused when they caught sight of Katerina, shooting looks at him and Caroline before pursing their lips and joining them at the table. As everyone came in and found seats, Caroline rallied, making sure everyone had the printed materials and that the laptop and projector she had set up were ready to go before calling the meeting to order.

Elijah sat back and let her work. The girl was a well-ordered tornado, if such a contradiction were possible. She had charts, lists, photos, schedules… it looked to him like the only thing left to do was to assign people to various committees to carry out her master battle plan. She fascinated him, this newborn baby vampire who was somehow _more_ human, not less, as most often happened to those newly made. He found himself looking forward with great relish to what she might accomplish in the future. In fact, he had a couple of projects in the works that sprang immediately to mind, projects for which a cute, bubbly, contemporary and energetic blond vampire would be perfect.

Caroline pulled up a slide of two armored knights riding full-tilt at one another, lances at the ready. Clasping her hands in front of her, she gave an enthusiastic little bounce. "Now, the main attraction of the Faire is _of course_ the jousting tournament. This will be a _Joust a plaisance"_ – she dashed a glance at Elijah, smiling with satisfaction when he gave her an approving nod – "which means that there will be several elimination contests over the course of the four days of the Faire, with a champion being named on the last day.

"On the first day, the tournament will open with a procession of the judges and contestants, and a formal Invocation," she said, moving to the next slide which was – God love her – a color-coded flow chart of events.

He let her run down through the stages and the set-up, stepping in only when Caroline brought up the assignment of 'knights' to various teams. "This will be an exhibition only," he warned, before anyone got overly enthusiastic. "Professional horsemen and re-enactors will give the demonstration."

"Actually, there are built-in precautions," Caroline forged ahead. "The company that's coming in uses these fiberglass lances with spring-mounted tips so you don't have the risk of shattering wood flying around." She gave him a significant look. "Plus, the tips are some kind of a rubber alloy, so most of the impact is absorbed. They're just designed to _look_ like the real thing." Caroline explained, flipping to another slide in her presentation.

"Demonstration _only_, Miss Forbes. There is too much involved in an activity of that scope to be taught in the month or so that we have to prepare. Fake lances notwithstanding, there is a good deal of horsemanship involved, too much to learn within that timeframe."

"But they're willing to tutor whoever wants to sign up, and they're, like, totally safety conscious and everything!" Caroline rushed on. "Besides, it'll be _so_ much more fun if we're rooting for people, and the girls can all tie their favors onto their guys' lances - "

"Kinky," Tyler said behind his hand to Matt, who snickered and elbowed him in turn.

"Hey Caroline, you can tie your favors on my lance _any_ time," some boy Elijah didn't know commented, adding a completely superfluous gesture for emphasis.

Tyler smacked him in the shoulder. "Dude. Not cool."

"_Children_," Elijah drawled. "Let's keep this on point, shall we?" That elicited another giggle from the would-be Casanova, quickly stifled when Elijah turned a hard gaze on him. "Demonstration only, Miss Forbes. Non-negotiable." He shrugged a little apology at her.

"Good. The whole thing is really sexist, anyway," a tall brunette put in. "The girls should be able to participate, just like the guys. We _are _going to be able to sign up for the fencing, right?"

"Dana, that is _so_ not period appropriate," Caroline told her, aiming her frustration in that direction. So that was the girl whom Caroline had said could 'suck it.'

"So? We may be paying homage to the period, but that doesn't mean we need to scrap 21st century sensibilities. I think girls should have a shot to learn."

"Only the top 10 guys are gonna get to compete anyway," Tyler pointed out.

"Top 10 according to who?" Dana shot back.

"To whom," Elijah corrected, making the girl roll her eyes. "That would be me. I'll be giving the fencing lessons. And if you like, you and any other women who are interested may join us," he said, settling the argument.

"You're just gonna get your butt kicked," Jeremy told her. Speaking, no doubt, from his vast amount of experience, and setting off a round of girls vs. boys bickering. Perhaps he should ask Hilda to come and help him instruct, he thought, smiling to himself. That would end the age-old argument with a quickness. In fact, he might do just that.

"Moving on: Mrs. Rice has volunteered her home ec classes to help with costumes, as long as people purchase their own materials, so we just need someone to work on the designs. Any takers?" Caroline asked, keeping the agenda flowing.

"I'll do it," Katerina offered. Elena and Stefan turned as one to stare at her. "What? Like I'm going to wear something one of you dreams up? Trust me: fashion history? Totally my thing. Wait 'til you see what I'm going to draw up for you," she told Matt, snuggling even closer to him on the bench, if that were possible.

"God, just kill me now," Caroline muttered. "Okay," she chirped, to cover it. "Kat's in charge of costuming, then. Food..."

Elijah tuned out again as Caroline continued to give assignments and get her troops in order, taking the opportunity to send Damon a text and inquire about Marcus. Damon's terse response: "_Shit-faced & half-way to suicidal."_ It didn't surprise him. He gave it six months before the vampire either killed himself outright or did something stupid enough that someone else did the honors for him.

There was a text waiting for him from Jenna as well. "_Will be there at 6 for PTCs. Come home with me afterward?_" He knew he should. He had all but ignored her for the last few days, the situation being what it was. Not that a little distance was necessarily a bad thing. Let passions cool a bit, that calmer heads might prevail. No point of either of them jumping into something from which they couldn't extricate themselves without a lot of noise and fuss. It was for the best, really. He pocketed his phone.

He missed her too.

_Bloody hell._ He took his phone back out. "_I'll be there,_" he typed, and put it away again.

Elijah cleared his throat as the meeting started to break up, with clumps of students going off in different directions. "I'd like to congratulate you on the excellent work you've done, Miss Forbes. You're well-prepared and well-researched. In fact," he decided, in a moment's inspiration, "consider this extra credit. At the end of the term I will scrap your lowest quiz score."

Caroline broke out in a delighted grin and clasped her hands under her chin as some of the others started grumbling. "And if any of you others show the same excellence and dedication in the execution of your various duties, the same will be applied to you."

Elijah stood as they started filing out and beckoned Katerina to join him over by the windows. After one more gratuitous PDA with Donovan, she strolled over to him, hitching her hip up on the window ledge and tilting her head at him like she did. "Mr. Smith?"

He crossed his arms and stared down at her. Stared her down, until she dropped the smile and the attitude. "What?" she asked finally.

"What are you doing?" He saw her roll her eyes, and pressed a finger to her lips before she could voice whatever smart-ass comment was flitting over her face. "Careful, Katerina," he warned her in a low voice. "I want the truth. I'm in no mood for games."

In an uncharacteristic display of good sense, she merely took his wrist and moved it aside. "We've had this conversation. You know, life? Building one?"

"Given your predilection for survival, I would think you'd consider relocating, what with the werewolves on the loose and all."

"Tyler Lockwood?" she scoffed. "Don't worry, Blondie keeps him on a leash when he has his monthly."

"Actually, I was referring to the pack that's currently running amok. Neither Damon nor Stefan warned you? They've claimed one vampire already, this full moon."

Her brows drew down into a 'V.' "Who?"

"I doubt you'd know her. A woman by the name of Sophia."

"I know who she is." Katerina crossed her arms in front of her. "No, no one told me."

He pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger, as though thinking. "That's right… I guess you haven't exactly endeared yourself to the people here, have you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Matt Donovan seems to like me just fine."

"Ah, yes, Mr. Donovan. A former suitor of Elena's, yes?"

"Your point?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Oh, it's just that you claim that you want to build a life – your _own_ life – yet here you are, trying to live Elena's."

"Why not? She's Little Ms. Perfect, isn't she? That's how you like your doppelgangers, right?" She hopped down from the window ledge. "Gotta run. I'll see you in a couple of hours," she tossed over her shoulder playfully.

"Excuse me?"

"Parent teacher conference? Students and parents? I'll be here with Mom and Dad." Katerina blew him a kiss from the doorway and zipped down the empty corridor.

Elijah stared after her. _What?_

* * *

><p>By the time Elijah had spoken with his eighteenth set of parents, he was reasonably certain he was going to kill someone before the night was over. Whether it would be for sustenance or just sheer, damned annoyance, he couldn't say. It was little wonder that the nation's educational system had collectively gone to hell, when the parents were more interested in befriending their children than in parenting them, and more inclined to argue with their teachers over grades than to help their charges achieve better ones. Were he to issue grades for raising children, there were few whom he had met tonight who would receive a passing one.<p>

One notable exception was Sheriff Forbes, with whom he had just finished speaking. It had been a pleasure to tell her how impressed he was with her daughter's thoroughness and dedication. The Sheriff had left their mini-conference looking pleased, if bemused; he wondered what sort of feedback she usually received regarding her daughter.

The crowds in the hall were thinning. Katerina had yet to appear, and Elijah fervently hoped that she had just been yanking his chain earlier. He spotted Carol Lockwood in the doorway, and pulled out his notes regarding Tyler so he'd have them ready. "Mayor," he greeted her as she approached.

"Elijah!" She grasped his hand in greeting, holding on longer than strictly necessary. Even after she let go, she stood close. "I'm hearing a lot of feedback tonight about the new history teacher!"

_I can just imagine._ "I fear there may be some disgruntled parents who feel that little Johnny shouldn't have to do any actual work to pass through school."

"There always are," Carol told him, rolling her eyes. "We are so lucky to have you teaching at our high school. I'm hoping you have better news for me than Tyler's math teacher had."

Elijah gave the mayor his impressions based on the paper and quizzes he had seen so far, and on notes the previous teachers had made. Carol punctuated the conversation with little touches here and there, giving Elijah the no-doubt correct impression that the discussion of her son's schoolwork was merely a pretext to talk with him. He tried to wrap things up as quickly as possible, hoping another parent would appear soon before this got truly embarrassing. Rather than taking his closing remarks as the dismissal that they obviously were, though, Carol took his elbow and turned him away from the door.

"I hesitate to bring this up," she told him, leaning in and whispering conspiratorially, "but something came to my attention the other day, and since I have a great deal of respect for you, I feel it only fair…"

"Yes?" God, what was the woman on about?

"I've heard through the grapevine that you and Jenna Sommers have been spending quite a bit of time together, and a certain tidbit of information dropped into my lap at a committee meeting the other day that I think you should be aware of – "

Elijah took her upper arm and turned her gently but firmly toward the door. "I don't believe this is the time or place for specious gossip, Mayor Lockwood, especially with other parents waiting." He noted the next in line as they turned, and groaned inwardly, reminding himself belatedly to be careful what he wished for.

As promised (threatened?), Katerina was there, leading some couple into the room. Carol did a double-take on seeing her. "My goodness, I had heard that Elena had a twin, but…"

"Hello Mrs. Lockwood," Katerina said dutifully, introducing herself and her 'mother and father,' Dr. & Mrs. Pierce, while Elijah looked on, scrutinizing them surreptitiously.

The man was on the short side, with a slight build and a receding hairline. He exchanged polite pleasantries with Carol in a soft-spoken and almost shy manner. The woman, by contrast, was rather plump, blond and rosey-cheeked. She shook Carol's hand enthusiastically and prattled on about nothing, while her husband looked on indulgently. Though both were able to carry on a conversation, they each showed a variety of slight physical tics, and their speech was punctuated by odd pauses and non sequiturs, like a record that periodically skipped a track – all signs of prolonged and wide-spanning compulsion.

Carol excused herself finally, and the two turned toward him. Elijah shook their hands automatically, glancing sidelong at Katerina, who stood close to the woman, holding onto her arm and occasionally laying her head on her shoulder as they spoke. Katerina, for her part, played her role to the hilt, not breaking character even when Elijah told 'Mom and Dad' that she would do better with her studies if she spent less time flirting with boys.

The woman let out a hearty laugh. "That's our Katherine," she told him fondly, putting her arm around Katerina's shoulder. "As pretty as she is, is it any wonder?"

Katerina somehow managed to blush prettily at that and snuggle against her for a moment.

"Be that at is may," he told them, "her score on the last quiz was less than stellar. I'd like for her to come in early tomorrow morning if possible so we can review that module. We wouldn't want her to fall behind, would we?"

"Oh, of course not! We'll have her here first thing, Mr. Smith, don't you worry," the woman assured him. Elijah tried to catch Katerina's glance as they prepared to go, but she studiously avoided his gaze, and left with the couple, by all appearances one happy little family unit.

It was horrifying. Not least because Katerina was playing her role just a little _too_ well. Elijah pinched the bridge of his nose. What a tangled, ugly mess. This was not going to end well. For anyone.

"Was that…" Jenna asked, entering the room as he looked up, her thumb pointing backward over her shoulder as she approached him.

"Yes. I'm afraid so."

Jenna lowered her voice to a near whisper. "What the fuck was _that_? Who were those people?"

Elijah shook his head. "I wish I knew."

Since no one else was in the room, she linked her little finger around his. "How long before you're sprung?"

"Fifteen, twenty minutes most likely."

"I'll see you at the house, then."

"So what dastardly piece of gossip about you would Carol Lockwood be falling all over herself to impart? She came in for a conference regarding Tyler, but I believe that was just a pretext," he explained, seeing her blank look.

"Oh. Um… we should probably discuss that later," she decided, squinting up at him.

"Fair enough." He squeezed her hand briefly before he disengaged. "I may be a bit delayed. There's a stop I want to make along the way."

"Would that stop happen to involve, say, picking up some ice cream?" she asked hopefully.

He smirked. "I think something might be arranged. Though I do seem to recall a certain promise you made to your niece…"

Jenna blushed and pushed her hair back. "Then I guess we better eat it before."

He dropped his voice down. "Or… during."

"And, on _that_ note…" Blush deepening, Jenna turned and left.

Elijah put away his notes and did some busy work while he waited for the other teachers and staff to vacate the school, something that didn't take very long once the last of the parents left; it was well past their usual quitting time. When only a couple of cars remained in the parking lot, he made his way to the office and let himself in. It took only a moment to locate the file cabinet with the students' personal information. Breaking the lock was child's play. He found the information card for 'Katherine Pierce' and noted the address. Putting the card back where he had found it, he strode down the corridor and out into the night.

* * *

><p>The house was one of the more upscale in-town homes, a white Greek Revival with a slate walk-way and a small but formal garden in back. Elijah had toured it during his own property search when he had decided to purchase something in the area. Recalling the layout, he slipped soundlessly around the right side of the house, toward the back corner where the informal family room was located. He kept to the shadows, being sure to stay hidden in case someone inside the house glanced outside, or one of the neighbors chose that moment to be nosy. Peering through a set of half-drawn curtains, he surveyed the scene.<p>

It was nothing he had expected, and everything he had feared.

A large, flat-screen television was turned on, showing what looked like some reality show or other. The woman was on the couch, knitting and talking, and occasionally gesturing toward the TV. A large bowl of popcorn sat on the edge of the coffee table, within easy reach of all of them. The man sat on the edge of a leather chair, gazing at some sort of board game on the ottoman in front of him. Katerina sat cross-legged on an oversized pillow on the other side, rolling dice. She moved a piece on the game board, and put her hands up in a victory gesture, making the woman laugh and causing the man to feign outrage. Katerina sprang lithely to her feet to give him a peck on the cheek, then grabbed the bowl of popcorn and snuggled up to the woman on the couch.

Elijah scrubbed his hands over his face. _Damn it, Katerina._

The man and woman, whose real names Elijah couldn't even guess, may have been compelled within an inch of their lives, but they weren't the only ones for whom the line between reality and illusion had blurred. As quietly as he had come, Elijah left and returned to his car, to go see Jenna. And asked himself how closely he was skirting that line, at least when it came to her.


	17. Chapter 17

**In which Elena gets her Petrova on. Damn, girl! Didn't know you had it in you. I think it's safe to say that she is firmly on Team Alaric.**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER SEVENTEEN<strong>

"Seriously, as if the fact that she looks just like you isn't weird enough! But she walks in with this couple and she's hanging all over them like they're actually her family." Jenna kicked her shoes off and tucked her feet under her on the sofa.

Elena stared at her. "She showed up with parents?"

"Mm-hmm."

"They must be compelled."

Jenna snorted. "Gee, you think? Completely scrambled. Got to be," she said, tucking one of the throw pillows behind her back. "Why is she even still here?"

"Believe me, I wish I knew." Elena grabbed the remote and turned down the volume as a commercial came on, driving the sound up several notches.

"Ooh, flip it to _Survivor_ real quick."

"Aunt Jenna, our lives ARE an episode of _Survivor_. We don't need to watch it on TV."

Jenna leaned forward to snag her iced tea off of the coffee table. "Can we vote Katherine off the island, then? Because bitch has got to go."

Elena made a face. "Yeah, well, good luck with that, since your boyfriend has apparently given her immunity."

"What do you mean?"

"She's still here, isn't she?" Elena shrugged diffidently.

"What's Elijah supposed to do, run her out of town on a rail?" Speaking of Elijah, where was he, anyway? It couldn't be taking him that long to pick up ice cream.

"He could. If he wanted to."

Jenna shook her head. "If he could have, she'd be gone. He has no use for her either."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," Elena snotted at her.

And just what the hell was her problem? "You're in a mood."

"Whatever. I'm just saying." Elena boosted the volume back up on the television.

Jenna got up and grabbed the remote, turning the TV off and squaring off with Elena. "No, actually, you're _not_ saying. So whatever it is you're trying to dance around, just spit it out."

"Fine. First, Elijah almost blew the sacrifice ritual trying to save Katherine, and now he's playing along with this whole high school charade. He's twenty times more powerful than she is. If he wanted to force her out, he could. God knows she's all about saving her own neck," she added, her tone making it clear what she thought of that. "But really, what do you expect, considering."

"What, Elena? Considering what?"

"The doppelganger thing? Me, Katherine, Irina?"

Jenna looked at her blankly. "I know you're both doppelgangers. But what does that have to do with it? And who is Irina?"

Elena raised her eyebrows at her. "Oh… You didn't know? I guess he must have skipped over that part when he gave you the big explanation."

"_Elena_…"

"He told you how the doppelganger came about and why, right? Yes, Katherine and I are doppelgangers. Irina was the original."

"And…?"

Her niece looked at her like she was explaining something to a small child. "And Elijah was in love with her."

Oh, Elijah had skipped over that part, all right. "But he can't stand Katherine," Jenna defended him, searching her memory for anything he _had_ said about the doppelgangers and how they were created to break the curse.

"Well gee, that wasn't the impression _I_ got when he was on top of her, trying to rip her clothes off," Elena said, lifting her hand to examine her fingernails.

_What?_ "When did… are you… What the hell are you talking about?"

Elena sighed and faced her. "Before the ritual, when we all met? I walked out onto the verandah, and they were going at it."

"There was kind of a lot going on at the time, Elena. Are you sure you didn't misinterpret something?" Jenna asked her, grasping at straws.

"Let's see… Katherine was on her back on the patio table, her legs were wrapped around Elijah, his shirt was open, and they were vacuuming each other's tonsils. Plus, there was grinding involved. So... nope, I don't think I 'misinterpreted' anything." Elena crossed her arms over her stomach, eyebrows raised, with the ghost of a self-satisfied smile playing around her lips, and shrugged slightly. "Sorry."

Jenna stared at her niece, wondering how best to forge this new territory. She and Elena hadn't always seen eye to eye on everything, but she had never acted like this – being snotty and purposely hurtful. She nodded slowly. "Yeah. The resemblance really is uncanny."

"Hey, look, I'm just – "

"I'm sure you have homework," Jenna cut her off. "Go do it."

"Jenna – "

"Now."

Elena hissed out a sigh and went up to her room, not exactly slamming her door, but closing it harder than strictly necessary. Agitated – _and that had no doubt been the point, hadn't it?_ – she went into the dining room and started straightening up the academic effluvia littering the table. Her abstract was printed out and only needed to be bound before she took and turned it in tomorrow. Jenna picked it up, appreciating the heft of it and the amount of work that it represented. Flipping over the cover sheet, she looked at the two photos she had inserted into her 'Contents' page.

Her research topic being siblings, she had included a scanned photo of she and Miranda from some long ago Fourth of July celebration. Miranda was around fourteen in it and budding into womanhood. She had her long hair in an up-do that Jenna supposed she had considered sleek and grown-up, a look that went well with the weskit-style vest and flared shorts she was wearing in the photo. Jenna, just five years old at the time, had green stains and bits of grass on her knees, and a big watermelon stain on the front of her striped T-shirt. She sat on Miranda's lap, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out at whoever had been snapping the photo.

The other photo was of Elena and Jeremy, taken probably three or four years ago at the lake house. Jeremy had caught a fish off of the dock and was advancing on Elena with it where she sat sunbathing, while Grayson stood in the background, holding his own fishing pole and laughing at the kids' antics. Miranda would have been the one behind the camera then. She wondered suddenly what her own family photos would look like. And who would be in the background of them.

Elijah's quick knock sounded at the door, and he let himself in, calling out a greeting as he armed the alarm system and carried a large grocery bag down to the kitchen. Jenna followed him into the kitchen. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd changed your mind. Where'd you go?"

"A certain lady sent me on a mission." He kissed her temple in passing and set the bag on the counter, removing cartons of ice cream, toppings, whipped cream, and cones from the bag. "There's Rocky Road, pistachio, and black raspberry. I wasn't certain which 'situation' we might be having this evening."

_Aw!_ He knew her 'situations.' "Definitely a 'chocolate situation,'" she decided, slipping her arms around his waist and kissing him. Elena's insinuations notwithstanding, damn she had missed him. Her body had _really_ missed him. She pressed against him more fully, flicking her tongue over his.

Elijah chuckled against her lips. "In that case," he told her, pressing her against the counter and kissing her more deeply, "there's hot fudge as well."

"I'm seeing a number of intriguing possibilities here." She sucked his lower lip into her mouth, giving it a little nibble.

"Mmm... such as?" Elijah slid his hands underneath her shirt and ran them up her sides, his thumbs brushing over her breasts.

Jenna put a hand to his chest and pushed him back. "You dish up the ice cream and grab the can of whipped cream, I'll heat the hot fudge." She gave his groin a friendly pat as she slipped by him. "Then we'll go upstairs and find out."

* * *

><p>Breathing hard, and only semi-coherent, Jenna flopped back onto the bed. She landed on something cold and hard, and reached underneath her to pull out the can of whipped cream. She set it on the nightstand, or tried to; it slid off the edge and hit the floor, where it rolled under the bed. "Oops."<p>

Elijah draped an arm over her and licked a stray smear of fudge sauce off of her shoulder, making her giggle.

"I've never much seen the attraction of ice cream," he confessed, "but I think I may have gained a new perspective on it."

Jenna rolled onto her side so she was facing him and took his hand, examining his fingers. "Sorry I bit you," she said sheepishly.

"I think I'll recover. You did say you had to be quiet," he teased.

"I know," she groaned, hiding her face in the pillow. "It's your fault."

"I'll accept that." Elijah tucked her hair back, where it had stuck to her sweat-dampened face.

She turned so she was facing him again. "I missed you. Are you okay?" He hadn't said anything about Sophia. Not that she'd given him much opportunity to talk before molesting him, she reflected.

Elijah nodded. "What about you? Any other suspicious goings-on at the campus?"

"Nope. All boringly normal. And," she said, merging her fingers with his, "I am turning my abstract in tomorrow. On time! Which means I can relax and enjoy our weekend. That's if you still want to go somewhere," she added. They hadn't discussed it further, considering. And they'd certainly broken through the first-time sex barrier already.

Some trace of thought or emotion flitted over his features and was gone before she could identify it. "What would you think about driving up to DC tomorrow night? We could stay for the weekend, take in some of the museums… I could point out what they got wrong," he said, winking at her and grinning a little. God, he was sexy when he did that.

"That could be fun. I haven't been to Washington since my junior class trip. I'm going to enjoy making out with you way more than I did with Logan Fell."

"Good to know. I, uh, have one little thing I need to take care of while we're there."

So, not an entirely romantic weekend getaway, then. "Oh?"

"Hilda and Gareth are staying there. They had asked me to call a summit with the other Originals. And, I'd like to ask Hilda to come and participate in the Ren Faire training. I should meet up with them briefly while we're there."

"Yeah, sure. I'd kind of like to meet her. In a 'holy cow she'll probably scare the crap out of me' sort of way."

"It's considered bad form to interfere with another vampire's human. You needn't worry. You'll be perceived as mine and, as such, off-limits to them."

'_Be perceived as' his_. Not that she _was_ his. _Down, girl. Now is not the time to get weird and clingy and needy, Jenna._ "Also good to know." Jenna fluffed the pillows up behind her and pulled herself up so she was half-sitting, drawing the sheet over herself as she did so. "Speaking of vampires and 'their' humans, what are you going to do about Katherine?"

Elijah rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head, frowning. "I don't know."

"She tried to kill me, you know," Jenna told him, picking at a pulled thread along the edge of the coverlet.

"Elena spoke of it. I don't think you need to be concerned. She's unlikely to try again."

"Can't you force her out of town? I mean, better safe than sorry, right?"

"I could, yes, but I'd prefer to have her where I can keep an eye on her."

"Just an eye?" she mumbled under her breath. But of course he heard it.

Elijah lay there for a moment, regarding her. "Wouldn't it just be simpler to come out and say whatever it is you're trying not to?" he asked at last.

"Fine… I was just wondering if you're keeping her here because she reminds you of Irina, and you may have feelings for her because of it."

He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow. "It seems Elena's been speaking of a lot of things, lately," he observed, his tone carefully neutral.

"She said you kissed her." _Among other things._ "Why didn't you tell me?" Yeah, so much for not getting weird on him.

"Jenna," he said, raising an eyebrow and giving her that disarming smile of his, "if I'm going to recite every woman I've kissed over the last twelve hundred years, it's going to be a very long conversation."

"You know what I mean. When you were telling me about the doppelgangers, why didn't you tell me about Irina, and how she was connected to you?"

"Because it was irrelevant at the time."

"And since then?"

Elijah leaned in and kissed her shoulder. "It's still irrelevant."

"But Katherine and Elena are just like her."

"No. They _look_ just like her. There's a difference."

"Okay, but still – "

A crash sounded downstairs, followed a split second later by the blaring of the alarm. Elijah was out the door in a blur, telling her to instruct the alarm company not to send anyone, and disappeared down over the stairs. Jenna got out of bed and grabbed her robe, planning to follow, when the phone on the bedside table rang. She grabbed it, panicking momentarily as she blanked on the challenge question; once her brain re-engaged, she gave it to them, told them they had it under control and hung up.

Jeremy and Elena were both in the hall when she left her room. "What's going on?" Jeremy shouted, over the screeching of the alarm.

"I don't know!" she shouted back, her voice ringing loud suddenly as the alarm cut off mid-sentence.

"Elijah went down to check," she told them in a normal voice. "He's here," she added, rather unnecessarily.

"Yeah. We heard," Elena dead-panned, sharing a look with Jeremy.

Right. God, she really was the worst aunt ever. "Is everything okay?" Jenna asked, leaning over the railing and peering down the stairs.

"You have a broken window," Elijah called up. "It looks like someone was trying to let him or herself in through the dining room. The alarm must have caused whoever it was to reconsider."

"You guys go back to bed," Jenna told them. "We'll take care of this."

Elena ignored her and started down the stairs as Elijah rounded the corner into the hallway. "Oh God!" She did a quick one-eighty, slapping a hand over her eyes. "Jeez, you couldn't have put some pants on?"

"Time seemed rather of the essence," he answered drily.

"Well, this is awkward," Jeremy supplied helpfully.

_At least he wasn't eating ice cream, _she thought inanely. Jenna huffed out a breath. "Bed. Go. We've got this."

Elena flounced back up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door shut. Jeremy gave her door a WTF look and shrugged at Jenna before turning and going to back his own room. Jenna scrubbed a hand over her face and went back into the bedroom to retrieve Elijah's pants, tossing them down to him. "You better put something on your feet before you come down," he warned. "Broken glass."

She did so and joined him in the dining room, where he was now half-clothed and picking up the larger pieces of glass. "Did you get a look at who it was?"

"Not much of one. Someone in a hooded sweatshirt, fleeing down the street. I didn't want to pursue, in case that person was just a lure to draw me out of the house."

She frowned. "Draw you out?"

"Another vampire wouldn't be able to enter," he reminded her.

Right. "How would they know you were here? Another spy?"

"Likely." He carried the glass out to the kitchen and threw it away. "We can vacuum the rest up in the morning."

"Maybe we shouldn't go anywhere this weekend," she said, following him.

"On the contrary, I think a trip to DC may be more imperative than I thought. The sooner I can pull this summit together, the better."

"What about the kids? Should we leave them here?"

He dropped an arm over her shoulders. "I'll ask Stefan to stay again."

"I really don't think I should be condoning Elena having her boyfriend sleep over." Elijah just looked at her, one eyebrow raised. "I'm an adult! It's different!" The smirk joined the eyebrow. "Oh, all right! It's not like I'm going to win any parenting awards at this point anyway. At least I don't need to worry about her getting pregnant," she added morosely.

Elijah pulled her in and kissed the top of her head. "Go up and get some sleep."

"Are you coming up?"

"I think I'll stay down here."

"Oh, right. The alarm won't work now, will it? Because of the contact point thingies?" She was sure the technician had said something about contact point thingies.

He grinned. "No, the system is still armed. That was a glass-break alarm that triggered. The frame is still in place, so the contacts are still functioning. If anyone tries to come in it will still go off."

Jenna stared at him blankly. "Uh… okay. If you say so. Come to bed, then."

"Better safe than sorry."

"I'd argue with you," she said, stifling a yawn, "but since my clock is set to go off in about four hours, I think I'll crash." She _would_ sleep better knowing he was keeping watch. Not that she was going to tell him that.

Elijah kissed her and turned her toward the stairs. "Get some sleep while you can. I intend to keep you up quite late tomorrow evening."

"Oh, I intend to keep _you_ up, too," she assured him, waggling her eyebrows at him as she went up over the stairs. It didn't occur to her until she was drifting off to sleep that they hadn't really finished their discussion. And they had resolved nothing about Katherine.


End file.
